Single-Beam Bathymetry Sounding Data of Cape Canaveral, Florida, (2014) gridded in ESRI GRID format

The Cape Canaveral Coastal System (CCCS) is a prominent feature along the Southeast U.S. coastline and is the only large cape south of Cape Fear, North Carolina. Most of the CCCS lies within the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge and included in its boundaries are the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station (CCAFS), NASA’s Kennedy Space Center (KSC), and a large portion of Canaveral National Seashore. The actual promontory of the modern cape falls within the jurisdictional boundaries of the CCAFS. These various agencies have ongoing concerns related to erosion hazards and vulnerability of the system including critical infrastructure, habitats, and recreational and cultural resources. The USGS conducted a bathymetric mapping survey August 18-20, 2014, in the Atlantic Ocean offshore of Cape Canaveral, Florida (USGS Field Activity Number 2014-324-FA). The study area covered an area extending south from Port Canaveral, Florida, to the northern end of the KSC property and from the shoreline to about 2.5 km offshore. Bathymetric data were collected with single-beam sonar- and lidar-based systems. Two jet skis and a 17-ft outboard motor boat equipped with the USGS SANDS hydrographic system collected precision sonar data. The sonar operations were conducted in three missions, one on each day, with the boat and jet skis operating concurrently. The USGS airborne EAARL-B mapping system flown in a twin engine plane was used to collect lidar data. The lidar operations were conducted in three missions, one in the afternoon of August 19, 2015, and two more in the morning and afternoon of August 20, 2014. The missions were synchronized such that there was some temporal and spatial overlap between the sonar and lidar operations. Additional data were collected to evaluate the actual water clarity corresponding to lidar's ability to receive bathymetric returns. This dataset serves as an archive of processed single-beam and lidar bathymetry data collected at Cape Canaveral, Florida, in 2014 (in XYZ comma-delimited, ASCII and shapefile format). Also included in this archive are Geographic Information System (GIS) data products: gridded map data (in ESRI© binary and ASCII grid format) and a color-coded bathymetry map (in PDF).