INTRODUCTION 



This manual is intended to provide the necessary instructions 

 and conversion tables for reducing processed marine physical and 

 chemical environmental data collected at oceanographic stations to 

 a standard format. Instructions for punching the National Oceano- 

 graphic Data Center (nODC) Physical and Chemical Oceanographic Station 

 Data Punch Card also are contained in this manual. This is the stand- 

 ard format used at the NODC; it is intended also for use by other 

 agencies or contributors interested in furnishing oceanographic data 

 to the Data Center or making their data systems compatible vith those 

 of NODC. The card format and codes described in this manual have 

 resulted from comments and suggestions by the oceanographic community. 

 Its main features are based on the report of the Eastern Pacific Oceanic 

 Conference (EPOC) Committee on Machine Processing for Oceanographic Data, 

 the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (iCES) oceano- 

 graphic station card format, the Canadian Oceanographic Data Center (CODC), 

 and the card format formerly used at the U. S. Navy Hydrographic Office. 



The card used by NODC is the 80-column Hollerith punch card. Each 

 column contains ten nimibers (0-9) and two additional places above the 

 0, designated as the X and Y overpunches. Only one number Is used in 

 each column; X and Y are used in combination with numbers to produce 

 alphabetic codes or to denote various special numeric indicators. 



