Sand waves at the mouth of San Francisco Bay, California

A multibeam bathymetric survey that produced unprecedented high resolution images of the mouth of San Francisco Bay was conducted in 2004 and 2005. The survey, performed over forty-four days by the Seafloor Mapping Lab at California State University, Monterey Bay, consisted of 1,138 track lines, 1.1 billion soundings, and covered an area of 154 km2 (60 mi2). The goals of this survey were to analyze sediment transport pathways at the mouth of San Francisco Bay and to calculate bathymetric change since the last survey was completed in 1956. The survey showed that significant bathymetric changes have occurred over the past 50 years. It also revealed that the study area contains sand waves that are among the largest and bedform morphologies that are among the most varied in the world.

This set of five sheets shows views of the sand waves on the seafloor from different perspectives along with descriptive text.