How do you download and style bathymetry data in R? One way is using the marmap library. This script will:

• Download bathymetry data from NOAA
• Create a palette of reversed, blue colours
• Create a simple plot
• Save the plot to a PNG file

# Load libraries
library(marmap) 
library(RColorBrewer)


# Set working directory
setwd("C:\\R\\")


# Download bathymetry data from NOAA
caribbean <- getNOAA.bathy(lon1 = -90, lon2 = -58,
                     lat1 = 6, lat2 = 24, 
                     resolution = 3,
                     keep = TRUE)   # Save downloaded data to working directory


# Create a palette of blues using a reversed palette from RColorBrewer
blues <- rev(brewer.pal(4, "Blues"))


# Open a PNG file for saving the plot
png("Caribbean.png", width = 800, height = 600)


# Plot the bathymetry
plot(caribbean, image = TRUE, 
     land = TRUE, 
     lwd = 0.1,
     bpal = list(c(0, max(caribbean), "grey"),
                 c(min(caribbean),0,blues)))

# Close the PNG file
dev.off()

More on marmap here.