goSEABED
World Seabed Data Browser
iSEABED
Here clients can locate data for the seafloor by area, type of data and sampling method. They can then request that data from The University of Colorado (public data) or from a third party (licenced data). 

It has been compiled by INSTAAR at the University of Colorado and and collaborating institutions, 
particularly the USGS Marine and Coastal Geology Unit, the NOAA National Geophysical Data Center and the Royal Australian Navy.
Many institutions and people have contributed data and ideas to the project.

 INTRODUCTION
WHAT THE MAPPINGS SHOW
QUERYING THE SITE DATA
dbSEABED OUTPUT PARAMETERS
HOW TO REQUEST DATA
HOW THIS WAS COMPILED
THE DATA CONTRIBUTORS

GOTO: World Data Browser
Zoom in to regions to see the point coverages.
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See also: Mississippi and Gulf Mexico Interactive

Note: The displays and data content, though still useful, are dated 2003.
This interactive mapper will be upgraded later in 2005 with vastly increased
data coverages and added functionality.
 

INTRODUCTION
dbSEABED holds over 1,000,000 attributed sites where researchers, surveyors and engineers have made samples, probes or inspections of the seafloor. dbSEABED is an information processing system and not all of those sites make it through to this mapping stage: many fail on data quality, or parameters may be non-standard. The data displayed here are filtered data, totalling over 460,000 sites. They refer to the top 1m of the seabed only. Data at deeper penetrations may be requested through dbSEABED at INSTAAR.

This site may be referred to by:
Jenkins, C.J., Kettner, A.J., Moore, C., Sharman, G. 2003. goSEABED World Seabed Data Browser. Univ. Colorado, Inst. Arctic and Alpine Res., Boulder, CO, USA. [Web document: "http://instaar.colorado.edu/~jenkinsc/dbseabed/goseabed/interactive/", 6 June 2003].

A number of conditions will apply to supply of data: (i) proper acknowledgement of original data source and of dbSEABED, (ii) verification that data is "fit for purpose" for the project, (iii) no on-supply to third parties (because data is constantly being cleaned and improved), (v) liability waiver.

Note: This site is not suitable for modem downloads. If data transfer times prove too long, transfer your operation to a 'broadband' service.
The page has been verified on PC and UNIX systems operating Netscape 4.7+ and Internet Explorer.


WHAT THE MAPPINGS SHOW
 
There are a number of 'layers' which can be selected by the users:
  • Requestable dbSEABED data [from many sources, attributed points]

    • a. Sediment Sites
    b. Rock Sites
    c. Coral Reef Sites
  • World Political [from ESRI, polygons]
  • Global shaded relief [from NGDC (NOAA) Boulder, georegistered JPEG]
  • World land relief [from NGDC (NOAA) Boulder, georegistered JPEG]
    		•  In this interactive GIS environment you can:
    • Zoom and pan
    • Interrogate the dbSEABED points for information
    • Turn the data layers on/off
    • Reclassify
    • Alter the symbols and colour pallets
    To request the data in an area, contact dbSEABED at INSTAAR with box latitude, longitude, subbottom depth.


    QUERYING THE SITE DATA
    To interrogate dbSEABED data: The table contains information that will allow you to specify a request of dbSEABED data, as in this example:

    Note:
    For the CoralReef Sites coverage no BottomType is written: it is always "Co".
    Fields "Rec", "#Shape#" and "#ID#" are generated by ArcIMS and are not a part of dbSEABED.
    ESRI ArcIMS makes blank fields to "0" so that zero is ambiguous (this problem will be fixed).
    The vast majority of points plotted on land are actually non-marine data sites; USGS and other institutions analyse soils, river and lake materials alongside marine sediments.
    There are mis-located points in this coverage; they are being corrected or decommissioned. Users are encouraged to report any errors or inconsistencies in the data.
     

    Latitude Degrees; WGS84; 0.01 precision (rounded)  nul = -999
    Longitude Degrees; WGS84; 0.01 precision (rounded)  nul = -999
    WaterDepth Metres; mostly uncorrected for tides and seawater sound velocities nul = -99
    SampleTop Metres below seabed surface  nul = -99
    SampleBase Metres below seabed surface  nul = -99
    SiteName Text string; usually as reported in original data  nul = "-"
    Sampler Text string; as reported in original data 
    DataTypes Codified text string showing best type of data that is available for the sample
    (though all types - E,P,C - may be available)
    • E Extracted numeric analytical data available; 
    • P Parsed word-based descriptive data available; 

      • C Empirically calculated value available based on other parameters
    		nul = "xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx"
    BottomType A highly abbreviated code for the dominant seafloor texture class. 
    • ~G   gravelly 
    • ~S   sandy
    • ~M  muddy
    • ~R   rocky
    • ~G.~R   gravel and rock
    • ~S.~R   sand and rock
    • ~M.~R  mud and rock
    • ~Co      coralline
    		 nul = "-"


    dbSEABED OUTPUT PARAMETERS
    The outputs of the Data Mining in dbSEABED are 20 parameters of high utility, in addition to station-location and metadata. In the encoded 'DataTypes' the character-positions 1-20 relate to the 20 useful parameters:
     
    1 Gravel % including biogenics
    2 Sand %
    3 Mud %
    4 Clay % (analysis data only)
    5 Grainsize phi
    6 Sorting phi
    7 SeabedCls Text String; (eg. "Phosphorite", "Bioturbated",...)
    8 ClsMshp Fuzzy membership (/1)
    9 HBTCode Text string codified according to: Hydrographic Office, 1991. 
    Chart 5011: Symbols and Abbreviations used on Admiralty Charts. (Edition 1). Taunton, UK.
    10 RockMshp % Exposure or Presence
    11 WeedMshp % Abundance
    12 Carbonate %
    13 MunslCode Color Hue-Value-Chroma text string code; (eg. "5YR6/3"; see REFERENCE)
    14 OrgCarbon
    15 ShearStr Generalized, but undrained, unconfined; kPa
    16 Porosity %
    17 PWaveVel m/s, 1Atm, 20deg C; unspecified frequency
    18 Roughness Text string code "V:Hcm" absolute ratio (eg. "3:7" cm); see REFERENCE
    19 CritShrStrs kPa, almost entirely of calculated values
    20 BotReverb (Experimental) Integer Index


    HOW TO REQUEST DATA
    With requests for data and any questions, please contact Chris Jenkins at INSTAAR, University of Colorado:  EMAIL .

    Data is available on Extracted, Parsed and Calculated parameters (above), Compositional graintypes and features, Sediment- and Bio-facies, and also the 'raw' data in Relational Database arrangement. The data can be supplied in many types of format, but usually in ASCII (comma delimited), as ShapeFile, EXCEL, MS Access relational database.


    HOW THIS WAS COMPILED
    More information is available at:

    THE DATA CONTRIBUTORS
    dbSEABED acknowledges the generous contributions of data that have been made by numerous university researchers,
    government agencies, companies and individuals.

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    iSEABED pages by Albert Kettner and Chris Jenkins.

    Date: 9 Sep 2005
    Copyright: INSTAAR, UnivColorado