EM710 Water Column Sonar Data Collected During W00475

This project was conducted in collaboration with NOAA's Office of Coast Survey (OCS) and the Coastal and Marine Hazards and Resources Program (CMHRP) of the USGS across several large portions of the Cascadia continental margin, offshore of California and Oregon. The primary objective of this seafloor mapping project will be to provide multibeam bathymetry, acoustic backscatter data, and water column data to address USGS Hazard Mission Area objectives by providing key offshore constraints that feed directly into earthquake, tsunami, and landslide hazard assessments and situational awareness products. High-resolution multibeam and backscatter imagery allow identification and characterization of active faults and submarine landslides. These data will also provide an important pre-event bathymetric baseline for rapid assessment of seafloor deformation after a large earthquake. Water column data will expand mapping of seafloor seep distribution, which is key for understanding the relationship between seafloor failure and seismogenesis along the Cascadia margin. This project also supports the Expanding Pacific Research and Exploration of Submerged Systems (EXPRESS) campaign, which is comprised of a large and diverse team of federal and non-federal partners targeting deepwater areas off of the U.S. Pacific coast. This project also supports NOAA's Integrated Ocean and Coastal Mapping mantra, "map once, use many times" and data from this project will be further used to update NOAA's nautical charting products within the area. This project will cover a total of 1,500 SNM and survey data from this project is intended to supersede all prior survey data in the common area.