Total organic carbon content of North Sea surface sediments

purpose:

This map shows the total organic carbon content (TOC) of surface sediments in the North Sea. It was produced by interpolation of legacy data from more than 3000 samples collected between 1960 and 2014. The distribution of this map allows the user to visualize an important marine habitat characteristic and to exploit the dataset for ecological and biogeochemical modelling.

abstract:

Weight percent total organic carbon (TOC) is one of the most commonly used descriptors for marine sediments. It is used to judge primary productivity of the overlying water column and refers to the amount of organic matter preserved within sediment. TOC has a major influence on biogeochemical processes occurring in sediments, including the regulation of the behavior of the other chemical species such as metals and organic pollutants. Therefore, determination of TOC is an essential component of environmental characterization analysis.This map conveys information on the weight percent TOC of seabed sediments in the North Sea. It has been produced with multivariate geostatistics (external drift kriging) using the percentage mud content as a trend variable. The underlying data set is a compilation of over 3,000 sediment samples from many national and European surveys conducted between 1960 and 2014. Due to the vintage of some samples in the database, users are advised to consider the dynamic nature of the seafloor when using the data and when creating derived surrogate based habitat maps. Also, due to the diversity of sources for the point data, users should be aware of the differing methods by which the TOC analyses were conducted. As a consequence, map confidence is not necessarily uniform and thus areas not always comparable, even though the interpolation surface may look continuous.

 
Citation proposal
(2017) . Total organic carbon content of North Sea surface sediments. https://gdk.gdi-de.org/geonetwork/srv/api/records/wdc-climate.de:3565253
 

INSPIRE

Identification

File identifier
wdc-climate.de:3565253   XML
Hierarchy level
collection collection
Online resource
Resource identifier
code
coastMap_Substrate_TOC
code
doi:10.1594/WDCC/coastMap_Substrate_TOC
Metadata language
eng; USA
Encoding
Format
zip-file
Projection
 

Classification of data and services

 

Classification of data and services

Coupled resource
Coupled resource
 
 

Classification of data and services

Coupled resource
Coupled resource
 
 

Keywords

Other keywords
Keywords
  • Samplers
Keywords
  • geodata
Keywords
  • observational data
Keywords
  • seafloor conditions
Keywords
  • ship
 
 

Geographic coverage

N
S
E
W


 

Temporal reference

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Temporal extent
Date ( Publication )
2017-12-12
 

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Conformity
 

Conformity

Conformity
Conformity
 

Restrictions on access and use

 

Restrictions on access and use

 

Responsible organization (s)

Contact for the resource
Organisation name
Helmholtz-Zentrum Hereon
 

Responsible organization (s)

Contact for the resource
Organisation name
Helmholtz-Zentrum Hereon
 

Metadata information

Contact for the metadata
Organisation name
Helmholtz-Zentrum Hereon
Organisation name
Helmholtz-Zentrum Hereon
Date stamp
2017-11-13T10:13:44
Metadata language
eng; USA
 
 

SDS

Conformance class 1: invocable

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Technical specification
 

Conformance class 2: interoperable

Coordinate reference system
 
Quality of Service
 
Access constraints
Limitation
 
Use constraints
Limitation
 
Responsible custodian
Contact for the resource
 
 

Conformance class 3: harmonized

 
 

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