BACKGROUND

Since 1980, the U.S. Geological Survey, Coastal and Marine Geology program has participated in a collaborative program of geologic research with the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection in the Long Island Sound area. Data collected to support these studies form the basis of a regional-scale study of the geologic framework for the Sound.

This report contains high-resolution seismic-reflection profiles from six cruises and core information from three major coring programs.  Together these datasets provide a regional coverage for most of Long Island and Block Island Sounds. These records and supporting documents, which were originally generated only in analog form, have been converted to digital form and are archived here. Data included are: 1) images of the full-resolution and browse versions of the seismic records; 2) core description logs and photographs; 3) supplementary historical documentation such as cruise reports, summary reports, and photographs of personnel and equipment; and 4) digital Geographic Information System (GIS) data layers of the seismic navigation and core locations

DVD Contents

There are three top-level files and three top-level directories contained on this DVD.

The top-level files are:

1. readme.txt (the ASCII version of this file) - This file contains a description of this DVD and may be viewed or printed by the user with any system program capable of opening an ASCII text file.

2. index.htm - This file is intended to be the starting point for DVD access. It is written in the Hyper-Text Markup Language utilized by the World Wide Web (WWW) project and must be opened with a WWW browser. Once opened, the user may browse the DVD's contents as they would browse pages  from the WWW.

3. lis.apr - An ArcView 3.2 project file containing the GIS data layers. This file facilitates the viewing of the shapefiles and related image data sets. If the user does not have ArcView available, they may access the shapefiles by downloading ESRI's ArcExplorer software at no charge from the ESRI website (www.esri.com)

The three main directories include:

Directory htmldocs/

This directory contains several subdirectories and the HTML files and supporting graphics to allow the user access to the report via any World Wide Web browser.  The major sub-directories include the following:

icons/ - this directory contains images used as icons in the layout of the various HTML pages

images/ - this directory contains images used in the HTML page layouts

browse/ - this directory contains images used as "browse graphics" to illustrate the various GIS data coverages

thumb/ - thumbnail versions of the browse graphics

Directory data/

This directory contains 5 subdirectories that contain the various GIS data layers and appropriate metadata. The sub-directories including the following data:

basemaps/ - basemap data used in the ArcView project file.  Basemap data include a general US land and coastline shapefile, rivers, cities and urbanized areas.

bathy/ - this directory contains the two bathymetric contour files (1 m and 5 m interval) for the Long Island Sound area.

cores/ - this directory contains three sub-directories containing the GIS core data layers

cerc/ - cores collected during the Inner Continental Shelf Sediment and Structure (ICONS) program of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Coastal Engineering and Research Center

mms84/ - cores collected in 1984 as part of a cooperative between the Minerals Management Service (MMS) of the U.S. Department of the Interior, the State of Connecticut, and the Association of American State Geologists (AASG)

mms88/ - cores collected in 1988 as part of a cooperative between the Minerals Management Service (MMS) of the U.S. Department of the Interior, the State of Connecticut, and the Association of American State Geologists (AASG)

nav/ - this directory contains six additional sub-directories containing the GIS navigation data layers and supporting metadata for the various seismic cruises

81_2nav/ - cruise AST81-2 in the Block Island Sound area

82_3nav/ - cruise AST82-3 in the Eastern Long Island Sound area

83_2nav/ - cruise AST83-2 in the East-Central Long Island Sound

84_1nav/ - cruise UCONN84-1 in the West-Central Long Island Sound

85_1nav/ - cruise AST85-1 in the Western Long Island Sound

90_1nav/ - cruise AST90-1 in the Fishers Island Sound and Northeastern Long Island Sound area

seismics/ - this directory contains six additional sub-directories containing the seismic records (full-resolution and browse versions) for the various cruises

81_2seis/ - cruise AST81-2 in the Block Island Sound area

82_3seis/ - cruise AST82-3 in the Eastern Long Island Sound area

83_2seis/ - cruise AST83-2 in the East-Central Long Island Sound

84_1seis/ - cruise UCONN84-1 in the West-Central Long Island Sound

85_1seis/ - cruise AST85-1 in the Western Long Island Sound

90_1seis/ - cruise AST90-1 in the Fishers Island Sound and Northeastern Long Island Sound area

Directory photos/

This directory contains three sub-directories containing the historical photographs of personnel, equipment and coring operations taken during the various field activities described in this report.

coring/ - contains thirty-two photos documenting the field coring operations and post-cruise core analysis and processing

equip/ - contains twenty-six photos showing the ships and equipment utilized in the seismic cruises

people/ - twenty photos of personnel involved with the Long Island Sound studies

TECHNICAL NOTES

This disk has been tested for use on computers having Windows 98/NT/2000/XP and Macintosh operating systems.

Access to the data and information contained in this report was developed using the HyperText Markup Language (HTML) utilized by the World Wide Web (WWW) project. This allows the user to access the information using WWW information browsers (i.e., Microsoft Internet Explorer, Netscape).  To start, open the file 'index.htm' at the top-level directory of this disc with your browser.

There are Internet links to USGS collaborators and websites included in this report. These links are only accessible if access to the Internet is available when browsing the DVD, and if those linked sites are operating.

DISCLAIMER

This report (published on DVD) was prepared by an agency of the U.S. Government. Neither the U.S. Government nor any agency thereof, nor any of their employees, makes any warranty, expressed or implied, or assumes any legal liability or responsibility for the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any information, apparatus, product, or process disclosed in this report, or represents that its use would not infringe on privately owned rights. Reference therein to any specific commercial product, process, or service, by trade name, trademark, manufacturer, or otherwise does not necessarily constitute or imply its endorsement, recommendation, or favoring by the U.S. Government or any agency thereof.

Although all data and software published in this report have been used by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), no warranty, expressed or implied, is made by the USGS as to the accuracy of the data and related materials and (or) the functioning of the software. The act of distribution shall not constitute any such warranty, and no responsibility is assumed by the USGS in the use of this data, software, or related materials.