262 • Marine Minerals: Exploring Our New Ocean Frontier 



Photo credit: w. westermeyer 



Marine analysts examine instrumentation aboard 

 the dredge Mermentau. 



its formation in 1961 and probably now has the 

 world's largest unclassified collection of oceano- 

 graphic data. 



About 95 percent of the EEZ data obtained are 

 in digital form, the rest is in analog form. All of 

 the data are stored on magnetic tape and comprise 

 about 650,000 stations, equivalent to about 135 

 reels of magnetic tape or about 4 gigabytes. The 

 time-lag from sampling to reporting ranges from 

 1 to 5 years. The rate at which data are acquired 

 is about 650 megabytes per year, due mainly to in- 

 puts from a few high data-rate devices such as cur- 

 rent meters. 



NODC has been pivotal in the development of 

 several data management activities that involve data 

 that is entirely, or at least mainly, taken in the EEZ: 



Outer Continental Shelf Environmental As- 

 sessment Program (OCSEAP).— OCSEAP is a 

 comprehensive multi-disciplinary environmental 

 studies program initiated by BLM to provide envi- 

 ronmental information useful in formulating 

 Alaskcin oil and gas leasing decisions. Starting from 

 a modest $100,000 data collection program in 1975, 

 OCSEAP had assembled by the end of 1984 over 

 2,500 data sets covering more than 100,000 stations 

 and consisting of more than 4 megabytes. During 



the early stages of this program, a great deal of ef- 

 fort was devoted to the development of data for- 

 mats and codes that would support the needs of in- 

 vestigators and be compatible for preprocessing and 

 converting to digital form prior to submission to 

 NODC. 



National Marine Pollution Information Sys- 

 tem (NMPIS). — NMPIS is essentially an annu- 

 ally updated catalog of thousands of marine 

 pollution-related projects carried out or supported 

 by dozens of Federal agencies. The catalog includes 

 types of projects, types of data and/or information 

 covered, geographic distribution, quantity of 

 data/information, means of access, costs, and prin- 

 cipal contacts. 



Marine Ecosystems Analysis (MESA) Proj- 

 ect. — MESA is a cooperative program between 

 NOAA and the Environmental Protection Agency 

 (EPA) to conduct baseline marine environmental 

 measurements primarily in the New York Bight, 

 New York; and Puget Sound, Washington, areas. 

 This program, which began in 1978 and completed 

 its data collection phase by 1 983 , resulted in more 

 than 2,000 marine environmental data sets consist- 

 ing of over 200,000 stations. NODC now holds 

 these data in appropriate files in the National 

 database. 



Strategic Petroleum Reserve/Brine Disposal 

 Program. — This NOAA program began in 1977 

 to provide assessment information to the Depart- 

 ment of Energy (DOE) on environmental effects 

 of brine discharge into the Gulf of Mexico. Base- 

 line marine environmental measurements from 

 monitoring efforts at discharge sites consisting of 

 over 87,000 stations have been archived by NODC. 



California Cooperative Fisheries Investiga- 

 tions (CALCOFI).— The CALCOFI program, 

 largely suported by the State of California, makes 

 oceanographic observations in conjunction with 

 fisheries studies at a grid of stations in the Califor- 

 nia Current region off the California coast. Begun 

 in 1949, this program has produced physical/chem- 

 ical oceanographic data consisting of more than 370 

 data sets of over 16,500 stations which are now held 

 by NODC. 



New Efforts Underway at NODC Involving 

 EEZ Dat^. — A cooperative agreement has been 



