SUBMARINE SEDIMENT DATA COLLECTION AND MANAGEMENT AT 

 THE U. S. NAVAL OCEANOGRAPHIC OFFICE 



I. Introduction 



The primary purpose of establishing a bottom sediment data file 

 is to collect in one place all pertinent data in a form suitable for rapid 

 sorting and retrieval. It also unites on one card or series of cards all 

 of the information describing a particular sample or locations, since 

 the data may be scattered widely through many publications. 



II. Major Sources of Submarine Sediment Data 



There are three principal sources of bottom sediment information: 

 unpublished survey data; published survey or laboratory data reports 

 and data reported in the scientific literature, or in research reports; 

 and nautical charts. 



A. Unpublished Survey Data 



Unpublished survey data are the most difficult to locate, acquire, 

 or use. Their existence is discovered, often by hearsay, by personal 

 contact with researchers in the field, and by conscientious and constant 

 perusal of the scientific literature for clues. Careful search for the 

 location of unpublished data and lengthy correspondence with the 

 owners are usually required before they can be borrowed or copied. 

 Finally, since such data often are incompletely analyzed, unchecked, 

 handwritten and often illegible, and unsummarized, considerable labor 

 and expense are required to put them in intelligible and usable form. 

 The information about a single sample often is scattered through a 

 large number of laboratory analysis sheets, each reporting a single 

 operation or type of analysis such as organic carbon analysis; pipette 

 division of the fine fractions; sieve separation of the coarse grains; 

 mineral separation cind identification; indentification of foraminifera; 

 measurements of wet density, plasticity, shear strength, chemical 

 composition, and radioactivity; and many others. The field description, 

 geographic location, water depth, and type of sampler often are recorded 

 on separate forms. The great difficulty of acqmring eind processing 

 such vuipublished data, except those available from Oceanographic 

 Office surveys, has caused effort to be concentrated primarily on 

 published data. 



