Mar Geol 23:305–337īirch GF (1980) Nearshore Quaternary sedimentation off the coast of South Africa (Cape Town to Port Elizabeth). Technical Report of the Joint Geological Survey/university of Cape Town Marine Geoscience Group 5:48–66īirch GF (1977) Surficial sediments on the continental margin off the west coast of South Africa. Bulletin of the Joint Geological Survey/University of Cape Town Marine Geoscience Group 4:1–134īirch GF (1973) Unconsolidated sediments off the Cape west coast. Tectonophysics 282:83–98īirch GF (1971) The glauconite deposits on the Agulhas Bank, South Africa. Mar Geodesy 32:355–371īen-Avraham Z, Hartnady CJN, Kitchin KA (1997) Structure and tectonics of the Agulhas-Falkland fracture zone. Quatern Sci Rev 23:1681–1698īecker JJ, Sandwell DT, Smith WHF, Braud J, Binder B, Depner J, Fabre D, Factor J, Ingalls S, Kim S-H, Ladner R, Marks K, Nelson S, Pharaoh A, Trimmer R, Von Rosenberg J, Wallace G, Weatherall P (2009) Global bathymetry and elevation data at 30 arc seconds resolution: SRTM30_PLUS. NOAA Technical Memorandum, NESDIS NGDC 24:19 ppīateman MD, Holmes PJ, Carr AS, Horton BP, Jaiswal MK (2004) Aeolianite and barrier-dune construction during the last two glacial-interglacial cycles from the Southern Cape coast, South Africa. The origin of some bathymetric features remains unknown, but many appear to relate to bedrock geology, sediment deposition (river drainage systems and ocean currents), and sea-level fluctuations.Īmante C, Eakins B (2009) ETOPO1 - 1 arc-minute global relief model: procedures, data sources and analysis. The new map not only resolves known shelf bathymetric features in greater detail but also reveals new features. The bathymetric dataset consists of approximately 7 million data sonar points collected by the Fisheries Division of DAFF over the last two decades, covering the entire South African continental shelf area of 541,000 km 2 between the Orange River mouth on the West Coast and Kosi Bay on the East Coast. (Annals of the South African Museum 98:1–27, 1987). This paper presents a bathymetric map of the South African continental shelf derived from digital single-beam echo-sounding data collected by the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (DAFF) that is at a significantly higher resolution than was previously available as presented by Dingle et al.

Although some areas have been mapped in detail, most South African shelf bathymetry is poorly resolved.

Detailed knowledge of shelf bathymetry is essential for understanding the long-term geological evolution of continental margins, the extent of the coastal plain as the shoreline moved in response to Pleistocene sea-level fluctuations, and for ecosystems management, resource exploration, and navigation.

Continental shelf