Morpho-Bathymetry of the Mediterranean Sea

The Morpho-Bathymetric Map of the Mediterranean Sea at the 1:4,000,000 scale presents a complete view from the Gulf of Cadiz and western approaches of the Gibraltar Strait to the eastern shores of the Black Sea.

This new map follows a previous Morpho-bathymetric synthesis of the Mediterranean Sea co-published, in 2008, by CIESM and IFREMER. It integrates the same set of swath bathymetric data plus the following additional data:

1. Unpublished swath bathymetric records from various sources including IFREMER, SHOM, GEOAZUR, OGS-Trieste, ISMAR-Bologna, CMCR- Hamburg, and locally first arrivals from 3D seismic data from the oil industry.
2. A bathymetric compilation of the Gulf of Cadiz published by Zitellini, Gracia, et al., (2009).
3. A few complementary data from the EMODNET European project portal.
4. Swath bathymetric data in the Back Sea provided by the East European Craton (EEC) project Assemblages.

The Digital Terrain Model (DTM), at 500 m, was mixed with a DTM at 1500 m from the GEBCO Atlas (General Bathymetric Chart of the Oceans) to illustrate the morphology of the Mediterranean Sea as a whole together with the onshore surrounding topography as extracted from SRTM 33’’ (Shuttle Radar Topography Mission, NASA) with a DTM at 90 m.

The resulting map displays a contrasting view between the continental reliefs, in shades of grey, and the Mediterranean seafloor morphology revealed by a well-suited colour grading scale. This map is completed by a Geological and Morpho-Tectonic Map of the Mediterranean Domain, at the same scale, released in July 2012 (authors Jean Mascle & Georges Mascle).