This dataset contains chlorophyll and true-color maps of intertidal sediment collected from Winyah Bay, South Carolina, USA (33.35°N, 79.19°W) and measured in sediment containers. The maps were derived from hyperspectral images of the sediment surface while immersed in an aquarium with continuous input of fresh seawater. Measurements were conducted in April 2011 in an outdoor laboratory with shaded natural illumination.The provided file is in HDF5 format, and metadata is stored for each measurement (http://www.hdfgroup.org/HDF5/). Additionally, a visualization of the spatio-temporal dynamics of surficial chlorophyll is provided as an animated GIF file (see further details).The true-color maps ("rgb-reffed") are obtained by combining three spectral channels for red, green and blue synthesis.The chlorophyll maps ("mpbi") are reported in Microphytobenthic Index units, as described in Chennu et al. 2013, doi:10.4319/lom.2013.11.511. The size of each pixel is approximately 0.5 mm.The dataset contains 6 sediment containers (B,E,F,G,H,I) measured at 39 different timepoints over four days. The containers G,H,I had no hydrodynamic treatment, whereas the containers B, E and F had a lugworm-mimic system.