Although the investigated area was, for the most part, already covered by multibeam data, we employed the on-board multibeam system to fill the gaps and to drive dredging operations. The multibeam system installed on the R/V Strakhov is an HOLLMING ECHOS 625, consisting of 15 (12.5 kHz) beams covering a swath of seafloor roughly 2/3 of the water depth in width. Multibeam data obtained during LDEO cruise EW93U5 KASTENS1998 with a Hydrosweep (Atlas-Krupp) system, were filtered and processed at IGM-CNR. The resulting detailed morphobathymetric maps of the Vema area were used during cruise S19.