Raw bathymetry data were collected using the ship's own Kongsberg EM1002 multibeam echosounder during the RV MARIA S. MERIAN cruise MSM20/3 (Response of Amazon sedimentation to deforestation, land use and climate variability). The cruise took place between 2012-02-19 and 2012-03-11 (Recife, Brazil – Bridgetown, Barbados). The primary goal of the cruise was to reconstruct the Holocene and Pleistocene climate history of the Amazon River basin and the adjacent ocean. Bathymetry data were collected in three working ares on the continental slope and shelf off northeastern Brazil (working areas A and B) and French Guiana (working area C). The deep-water system EM120 was used for mapping from the shelf break to deep waters in working areas A and C, while the shallow-water system EM1002 was run in areas B and C. The data are archived at the Federal Maritime and Hydrographic Agency of Germany (Bundesamt für Seeschifffahrt und Hydrographie, BSH) and provided to PANGAEA database for data curation and publication. No sound velocity profiles (SVP) files from the cruise are archived at the BSH, thus no SVP files are added to this dataset. Data are unprocessed and therefore contain incorrect depth measurements (artifacts). Data can be processed e.g. with the open source software package MB-System (Caress, D. W., and D. N. Chayes, MB-System: Mapping the Seafloor, http://www.mbari.org/products/research-software/mb-system/, 2022).

These data should not be used for navigational purposes.This data submission was prepared by Evgenia Bazhenova (MARUM). The raw data files may have been renamed between data acquisition and submission to PANGAEA.