USGS Open-File Report 2006-1046: Data Catalog

Surficial sediment character of the New York-New Jersey offshore continental shelf region: A GIS Compilation

Data Catalog

Data provided in this publication are located using geographic coordinates for integration into a Geographic Information System (GIS). A GIS is defined as a system of hardware and software to support the display, manipulation, and analysis of spatial data for mapping and complex data solving. This integrated package provides researchers the ability to integrate, analyze, and map the various data sets as an aid to scientific research, and policy-making decisions tied to the environment.

The sediment/sea-floor layers contained in five shapefiles as parsed, exracted, calculated, facies and computed data. The five individual sediment/sea-floor data layers basemap data have been compiled into an ArcView ™ project file (nynj.apr) at the top-level directory of this publication. This project file is intended to be opened and the data viewed with the Environmental Systems Research Institute, Inc. (ESRI) ArcView™ or ArcGIS™ software. The project file reflects relative paths to the archived data as organized within this publication. To open the supplied project file and view the datasets, the user must start the GIS software, navigate to the top-level of this publication and open the project file (nynj.apr).

For those who don't have the ESRI software or a compatible GIS data browser available on their computer, a free viewer, ArcExplorer™, is available from ESRI. Please note that the ArcExplorer™ software is limited to the Microsoft Windows operating system.

Each GIS data layer from this publication is cataloged in the table below for easy access. The individual data layers are described and include the shapefile name (e.g. _EXT is extracted data ) which is linked to a browse graphic showing the data layer extent and coverage.

Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC) metadata for the individual data layers is provided in three versions (HTML, FAQ, and text). Selecting associated metadata files from the table below will open the information in a new browser window.

A 'zip' compressed, downloadable archive file containing the ArcView™ shapefile for each data layer is also provided. Compressed downloadable files were created using the Windows program WINZIP v8.0. For those users who do not have software capable of uncompressing the archived zip files, they may obtain a free version of the software from Winzip Computing, Inc. or Pkware, Inc. In addition to the ArcView™ shapefile, the sediment data layers are available in an ASCII text format and a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet format. The first record of the ASCII file and Excel spreadsheet contains the name of the data fields for that file.

usSEABED DATA

Data Layer Name and Description	Metadata	Files
NYNJ_PRS - usSEABED parsed (word-based) data for the New York-New Jersey region. An explanation of the individual data sets may be found in the Data Dictionary section.	HTML FAQ text	zip Excel text
NYNJ_EXT - usSEABED extracted data for the New York-New Jersey region . An explanation of the individual data sets may be found in the Data Dictionary section.	HTML FAQ text	zip Excel text
NYNJ_CLC - usSEABED calculated data for the New York-New Jersey region. An explanation of the individual data sets may be found in the Data Dictionary section.	HTML FAQ text	zip Excel text
NYNJ_FAC - usSEABED facies data for the New York-New Jersey region. An explanation of the individual data sets may be found in the Data Dictionary section.	HTML FAQ text	zip Excel text
NYNJ_CMP - usSEABED computed data for the New York-New Jersey region. An explanation of the individual data sets may be found in the Data Dictionary section.	HTML FAQ text	zip Excel text
ATL_SRC - usSEABED source data for the Atlantic Coast. An explanation of the individual data sets may be found in the Data Dictionary section.	Online text	Online html

BATHYMETRY

Data Layer Name and Description	Metadata	Files
atl_grd - New York-New Jersey regional bathymetric data, converted to 'hillshaded' to show bathymetry features.	HTML FAQ text	zip

Data Layer Name
and Description

Metadata

Files

atl_grd - New York-New Jersey regional bathymetric data, converted to 'hillshaded' to show bathymetry features.

HTML
FAQ
text

zip

BASEMAPS

Data Layer Name and Description	Metadata	Files
eez - Boundaries of the U.S. Exclusive Economic Zone (US EEZ) of the New York-New Jersey project area, extending 200 nautical miles offshore.	HTML FAQ text	zip
3nm Federal - The 3 nautical mile boundary between state and federal waters .	HTML FAQ text	zip
state_bounds - Internal US state boundaries	HTML FAQ text	zip
nos80k - US states map	HTML FAQ text	zip

SEA-FLOOR PHOTOS

Data Layer Name and Description	Metadata	Files
seafloor - Sea-Floor photos, previously included in USGS Open-File Report 2001-154 (Paskevich and others, 2001)	Online	Online

Data Layer Name
and Description

Metadata

Files

seafloor - Sea-Floor photos, previously included in USGS Open-File Report 2001-154 (Paskevich and others, 2001)

Online

Spatial and Temporal Uncertainties

Users of usSEABED data are reminded that many sea-floor regions are, by their nature, dynamic environments subject to a variety of physical processes, such as erosion, winnowing, reworking, and sedimentation or accretion that vary on different spatial and temporal scales, and sea-floor samples may represent a only moment in time. Although usSEABED is comprised of samples collected, described, and analyzed by many different organizations and individuals over a span of years, metadata are provided for each source report. In cases where original metadata are not available from the data source, metadata were created based on available information accompanying the data. Of particular importance, site locations are as given in the original sources, with uncertainties due to navigational techniques and datums ignored in the usSEABED compilation. As many reports are decades old, users of usSEABED should use their own criteria to determine the appropriateness of data from each source report for their particular purpose and scale of interest.

In addition, there are uncertainties in data quality associated with both the extracted data (analytical analyses) and parsed data (word-based descriptions). It may be that grain-size analyses are done solely on the sand fraction, excluding coarser material, such as shell fragments and gravel, while word descriptions of sediment samples may emphasize or de-emphasize the proportion of fine or coarse sediment fraction or disregard other important textural or biological components. Detailed information about issues such as these are noted in the source metadata files, and known incomplete data are decommissioned in usSEABED.

Users are encouraged to view the entire document before downloading the data files and should refer to the metadata files for information about individual sources, limitations, date of collection, and other information. As issues about the data or the data processing may be discovered, errata will be posted on the usSEABED Web site. Corrections will be included in the next version of the publication.