Multibeam bathymetry raw data using the ship's own Atlas Hydrographic Hydrosweep DS 2 multibeam echo sounder was not continuously recorded during RV METEOR cruise M57/3. Data was recorded on 17 days between 2003-03-15 and 2003-04-08. This dataset contains a survey data in the South Atlantic Ocean. In the north data are recorded during transit whereas in the south data are being recorded from Namibian continental the shelf to continental slope. The approximate average depth of the entire dataset is around 4300m. 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 ancillary sound velocity profiles (SVP) files from the cruise are archived at the BSH, thus no SVP files are added to this dataset. This publication is conducted within the efforts of the German Marine Research Alliance in the core area 'Data management and Digitalization' (Deutsche Allianz Meeresforschung, DAM). Data are unprocessed and therefore contains incorrect depth measurements (artifacts) without further processing. Note that refraction errors can be expected due to the lack of proper SVP. Overall, it appears that the data quality is rather good too bad since the gridded hillshade data showed some unrealistic swath width at the continual slope area, the remaining data are looking ok. Data can be processed e.g. with the open source software package MB-System (Caress et al. 2024, https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6302801).

These data should not be used for navigational purposes.Data publishing was realized by Daniel Damaske, MARUM - Center for Marine Environmental Sciences (University Bremen).