l486nc.m77t and l486nc.h77t: MGD77T data and header files for single-beam bathymetry data for field activity L-4-86-NC in Northern California from 08/21/1986 to 09/05/1986

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Frequently anticipated questions:

What does this data set describe?

Title:
l486nc.m77t and l486nc.h77t: MGD77T data and header files for single-beam bathymetry data for field activity L-4-86-NC in Northern California from 08/21/1986 to 09/05/1986
Abstract:
Single-beam bathymetry data along with Loran-C RHO-RHO and GPS navigation data was collected as part of the U.S. Geological Survey cruise L-4-86-NC. The cruise was conducted in Northern California from August 21 to September 5, 1986. The chief scientists were Dave Cacchione and Dave Drake from the USGS Coastal and Marine Geology office in Menlo Park, CA. The purpose of this cruise is unknown. The geophysical sources were 12 kilohertz (kHz) and 3.5 kHz systems. These data are reformatted from space-delimited ASCII text files located in the Coastal and Marine Geology Program (CMGP) InfoBank field activity catalog at http://walrus.wr.usgs.gov/infobank/l/l486nc/html/l-4-86-nc.meta.html into MGD77T format provided by the NOAA's National Geophysical Data Center(NGDC). The MGD77T format includes a header (documentation) file (.h77t) and a data file (.m77t). More information regarding this format can be found in the publication listed in the Cross_reference section of this metadata file.
Supplemental_Information:
The navigation data are digitally collected using Loran-C RHO-RHO and a Global Positioning System (GPS). The GPS is a space-based satellite navigation system maintained by the United States government and is accessible using a GPS receiver. Data accuracy is based on individual receiver models, and most GPS data are collected in the WGS84 horizontal datum. Loran-C was a federally provided radionavigation service managed by the U.S. Coast Guard. Low frequency radio signals transmitted by fixed land based radio beacons served the 48 continental states, their coastal areas, and parts of Alaska. Loran-C could be utilized in different modes of operation; one of these was circular mode, also known as, range-range or RHO-RHO. It only needed a fix from two stations in order to establish a position and an accuracy of 20 to 40 m was achievable. The Data Acquisition, Processing, and Storage (DAPS) group performs a number of processing steps to the navigation data once it is collected which can vary by cruise. These steps are outlined within the header information in each individual digital navigation (.0xx, .6xx) space-delimited ASCII data file. The header information rows are indicated by lines beginning with the character "!".The header information rows are indicated by lines beginning with the character "!". The single-beam bathymetry data are collected both digitally and as analog records with 12 kHz and 3.5 kHz systems. The bathymetry datasets were commonly processed using three programs: (A) Batred, which calculates depth from travel times; (B) nosamebathy, which eliminates identical adjacent bathymetry values; and (C) nozerobathy, which removes records with a depth value of "0.0". However, not all of the datasets included in this report were processed with one or more of these programs. If the data was not run through these programs it was reformatted using the most recent "best file" on InfoBank, often these were categorized by InfoBank as raw bathymetry files. Details about which processing steps were taken by the DAPS group can be found in the header information of the bathymetry and navigation ASCII files downloaded from InfoBank. Prior to reformatting the data into MGD77T format the "best" bathymetry and navigation files from InfoBank were edited to remove the header information and reformatted using Excel 2010 to separate the data into columns based on tabs. Next the bathymetry and navigation files were merged based on time and latitude and longitude. The combined navigation and bathymetry was saved as a .txt file. This combined bathymetry and navigation file was used as an input file into the GEODAS ReFormat to MDG77T program developed by NOAA's NGDC. The program outputs the reformatted data as a tab-delimited .m77t file. The program is available for use at: http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/mgg/gdas/gx_announce.Html. For information regarding fields found within the MGD77T files, please refer to the publication, Hittelman and others (2010), found within the Cross-reference section of this metadata file. Each MGD77T data file also has an accompanying header file (.h77t). The fields within these header files are also defined in the aforementioned publication. Fields are populated based on InfoBank metadata records, digital data file headers, and accompanying publications (often cruise reports) for the survey. If a field is unknown or did not apply to the dataset it is intentionally left blank.
  1. How might this data set be cited?
    U.S. Geological Survey, and Coastal and Marine Geology Program, 2013, l486nc.m77t and l486nc.h77t: MGD77T data and header files for single-beam bathymetry data for field activity L-4-86-NC in Northern California from 08/21/1986 to 09/05/1986: U.S. Geological Survey, St. Petersburg, FL.

    Online Links:

    This is part of the following larger work.

    Schreppel, Heather A., Degnan, Carolyn H., Metzger, Dan R., and Dadisman, Shawn V., 2013, Archive of U.S. Geological Survey selected single-beam bathymetry datasets, 1969-2000: U.S. Geological Survey Data Series 757, U.S. Geological Survey, St. Petersburg, FL.

    Online Links:

  2. What geographic area does the data set cover?
    West_Bounding_Coordinate: -126.60532
    East_Bounding_Coordinate: -122.35970
    North_Bounding_Coordinate: 46.62119
    South_Bounding_Coordinate: 37.76028
  3. What does it look like?
  4. Does the data set describe conditions during a particular time period?
    Beginning_Date: 21-Aug-1986
    Ending_Date: 05-Sep-1986
    Currentness_Reference:
    ground condition
  5. What is the general form of this data set?
    Geospatial_Data_Presentation_Form: tab-delimited ASCII text files
  6. How does the data set represent geographic features?
    1. How are geographic features stored in the data set?
      Indirect_Spatial_Reference: Northern California from 08/21/1986 to 09/05/1986
      This is a Point data set. It contains the following vector data types (SDTS terminology):
      • Point
    2. What coordinate system is used to represent geographic features?
      Horizontal positions are specified in geographic coordinates, that is, latitude and longitude. Latitudes are given to the nearest 0.000001. Longitudes are given to the nearest 0.000001. Latitude and longitude values are specified in Decimal degrees. The horizontal datum used is D_WGS_1984.
      The ellipsoid used is WGS_1984.
      The semi-major axis of the ellipsoid used is 6378137.000000.
      The flattening of the ellipsoid used is 1/298.25722210100002.
  7. How does the data set describe geographic features?
    l486nc.m77t
    MGD77T single-beam bathymetry data file for L486NC (Source: NOAA's National Geophysical Data Center, See Hittelman and others (2010) Cross_Reference section above for details about the MGD77T format and citation information.)
    SURVEY_ID
    Survey identifier supplied by the contributing organization (Source: NGDC) This identifier varies in format and is supplied by the contributing organization
    TIMEZONE
    Time-zone correction (Source: NGDC) In our datasets, no correction was applied. All values equal 0.
    DATE
    Survey Date (Source: NGDC)
    Range of values
    Minimum:19860821
    Maximum:19860905
    Units:YYYYMMDD, (four digit year, two digit month, two digit day)
    TIME
    Time (Source: NGDC)
    Range of values
    Minimum:0
    Maximum:2359
    Units:hours and decimal minutes
    LAT
    Latitude (Source: World Geodetic System 1984 Geographic Coordinate System)
    Range of values
    Minimum:37.76028
    Maximum:46.62119
    Units:decimal degrees
    LON
    Longitude (Source: World Geodetic System 1984 Geographic Coordinate System)
    Range of values
    Minimum:-126.60532
    Maximum:-122.3597
    Units:decimal degrees
    POS_TYPE
    Indicates how lat/lon was obtained (Source: NGDC)
    ValueDefinition
    1Observed fix
    3Interpolated fix
    nilunspecified
    BAT_TTIME
    Bathymetry, 2-way travel time (Source: U.S. Geological Survey)
    Range of values
    Minimum:0.002
    Maximum:12.676
    Units:seconds
    l486nc.h77t
    MGD77T single-beam bathymetry header file for L-4-86-NC (Source: NOAA's National Geophysical Data Center, See Hittelman and others (2010) Cross_Reference section above for details about the MGD77T format and citation information.)
    SURVEY_ID
    Survey identifier supplied by the contributing organization (Source: NGDC) This identifier varies in format and is supplied by the contributing organization
    FORMAT_77
    Format Acronym (Source: NGDC) Text string description
    PARAMS_CO
    Parameters surveyed codes. (Source: NGDC) Status of geophysical parameters for this survey. See Hittelman and others (2010) from the Cross_Reference section above for details.
    INST_SRC
    Source Institution (Source: NGDC) Text string description
    COUNTRY
    Country (Source: NGDC) Text string description
    PLATFORM
    Platform name (Source: NGDC) Text string description
    PLAT_TYPCO
    Platform type code (Source: NGDC)
    ValueDefinition
    nilUnspecified
    1Surface Ship
    2Submersible Ship
    3Aircraft
    4Buoy
    5Mobile land
    6Fixed land
    7Deep tow
    PLAT_TYP
    Platform type (Source: NGDC) Text string description
    CHIEF
    Chief Scientist(s) (Source: NGDC) Text string description
    PROJECT
    Project, cruise, leg (Source: NGDC) Text string description
    FUNDING
    funding (Source: NGDC) Text string description
    DATE_DEP
    survey departure date (Source: NGDC)
    Range of values
    Minimum:19770427
    Maximum:20000629
    Units:YYYYMMDD (four digit year, two digit month, two digit day)
    PORT_DEP
    port of departure (Source: NGDC) Text string description
    DATE_ARR
    survey arrival date (Source: NGDC)
    Range of values
    Minimum:19770427
    Maximum:20000629
    Units:YYYYMMDD (four digit year, two digit month, two digit day)
    PORT_ARR
    port of arrival (Source: NGDC) Text string description
    NAV_INSTR
    navigation instrumentation (Source: NGDC) Text string description
    POS_INFO
    position determination method/ geodetic datum (Source: NGDC) Text string description
    BATH_INSTR
    bathymetry instrumentation (Source: NGDC) Text string description
    BATH_ADD
    additional forms of bathymetry (Source: NGDC) Text string description
    LAT_TOP
    Latitude (Source: World Geodetic System 1984 Geographic Coordinate System)
    Range of values
    Minimum:16.38240
    Maximum:89.98766
    Units:decimal degrees
    LAT_BOTTOM
    Latitude (Source: World Geodetic System 1984 Geographic Coordinate System)
    Range of values
    Minimum:16.38240
    Maximum:89.98766
    Units:decimal degrees
    LON_LEFT
    Longitude (Source: World Geodetic System 1984 Geographic Coordinate System)
    Range of values
    Minimum:10.30551
    Maximum:-117.13802
    Units:decimal degrees
    LON_RIGHT
    Longitude (Source: World Geodetic System 1984 Geographic Coordinate System)
    Range of values
    Minimum:10.30551
    Maximum:-117.13802
    Units:decimal degrees
    BATH_DRATE
    general digitizing rate of bathymetry (Source: NGDC) Text string description
    SOUND_VEL
    assumed sound velocity (Source: NGDC) Text string description
    VDATUM_CO
    bathymetric vertical datum (Source: NGDC) In our datasets, no correction was applied. All values equal 0.
    Entity_and_Attribute_Overview:
    Bathymetry and navigation data for U.S. Geological Survey bathymetry survey L-4-86-NC in MGD77T format.
    Entity_and_Attribute_Detail_Citation:
    Attributes are obtained from MGD77T data files created from the navigation and bathymetry best files. MGD77T is the standard, defined data format used for geophysical data in the National Geophysical Data Center. The MGD77T format contains more attributes than defined here. Attributes that were null for this data were not included. Details about other attributes can be found in Hittelman and others (2010), see Cross_Reference section above for citation details.

Who produced the data set?

  1. Who are the originators of the data set? (may include formal authors, digital compilers, and editors)
    • U.S. Geological Survey
    • Coastal and Marine Geology Program
  2. Who also contributed to the data set?
    Dave Cacchione (Chief Scientist, USGS Western Region); Dave Drake (Chief Scientist, USGS Western Region);
  3. To whom should users address questions about the data?
    Heather A. Schreppel
    Cherokee Nation Technology Solutions, contracted to U.S. Geological Survey
    IT Management Specialist/Database Support Assistant
    600 4th Street South
    St. Petersburg, FL
    USA

    (727) 803-8747, ext. 3013 (voice)
    hschreppel@usgs.gov

Why was the data set created?

These data and information are intended for science researchers,students, policy makers, and general public. These data are not to be used for navigation purposes. The data are reformatted into MGD77T standard format for inclusion into NOAA's NGDC geophysical database. From there the data will be made available to GeoMapApp (http://www.geomapapp.org/) and Virtual Ocean (http://www.virtualocean.org/) Earth-browsing software. Access to the data is also provided via the USGS Coastal and Marine Geoscience Data System (http://cmgds.marine.usgs.gov/).

How was the data set created?

  1. From what previous works were the data drawn?
  2. How were the data generated, processed, and modified?
    Date: 19-Jan-1996 (process 1 of 9)
    Below are the details about which processing steps were taken by the DAPS group that can be found in the header information of the ASCII files downloaded from InfoBank. Navigation Data 
    Converted to time format with year at start.

11/03/86 CLINT DRS$DATA:[L486NC.N]L486NC.070;
DUA0:[DRS.NAV]EOTCSSP.EXE;
    Person who carried out this activity:
    U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), Coastal and Marine Geology (CMG)
    Attn: Carolyn H. Degnan
    Geophysicist
    USGS Pacific Coastal & Marine Science Center, 400 Natural Bridges Drive
    Santa Cruz, CA
    USA

    (831) 460-7452 (voice)
    (831) 427-4748 (FAX)
    infobank@octopus.wr.usgs.gov
    Date: 31-Oct-1998 (process 2 of 9)
    Below are the details about which processing steps were taken by the DAPS group that can be found in the header information of the ASCII files downloaded from InfoBank. Bathymetry Data 
    10/31/1998  /tiger/l/l486nc/bath/l-4-86-nc.320_070
/bear/programs/edit/automerge/automerge

Input was...
Converted to time format with year at start.

11/04/86 CAROLYN DRS$DATA:[L486NC.B]L486NC.320;
DUA0:[DRS.BAT]BATRED.EXE;1

11/04/86 CAROLYN DRS$DATA:[L486NC.B]L486NC.301;
DUA0:[DATA.][L486NC.B]TEMP.EXE;
deleted values that equal 16666.5

Input was...
Converted to time format with year at start.

11/03/86 CLINT DRS$DATA:[L486NC.N]L486NC.070;
DUA0:[DRS.NAV]EOTCSSP.EXE;

time, lat, long, time(sec) to nearest nav fix, data values
    Person who carried out this activity:
    U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), Coastal and Marine Geology (CMG)
    Attn: Carolyn H. Degnan
    Geophysicist
    USGS Pacific Coastal & Marine Science Center, 400 Natural Bridges Drive
    Santa Cruz, CA
    USA

    (831) 460-7452 (voice)
    (831) 427-4748 (FAX)
    infobank@octopus.wr.usgs.gov
    Date: 2012 (process 3 of 9)
    A navigation file identified as the best available version in InfoBank for this cruise was copied and saved as an ASCII text file to be combined with the best available bathymetry file for processing to MGD77T format. For details regarding processing steps performed on these best available files from InfoBank, please see the header information within the original files at http://walrus.wr.usgs.gov/infobank/ and previous processing steps. Person who carried out this activity:
    Cherokee Nation Technology Solutions, contracted to the U.S. Geological Survey
    Attn: Heather A. Schreppel
    IT Management Specialist/Database Support Assistant
    600 4th Street South
    St. Petersburg, FL
    USA

    727-803-8747 ext. 3013 (voice)
    hschreppel@usgs.gov
    Data sources used in this process:
    • l-4-86-nc.070.txt
    Data sources produced in this process:
    • l486ncnav.txt
    Date: 2012 (process 4 of 9)
    A bathymetry file identified as the best available version in InfoBank for this cruise was copied and saved as an ASCII text file to be combined with the best available navigation file for processing to MGD77T format. For details regarding processing steps performed on these best available files from InfoBank, please see the header information within the original files at http://walrus.wr.usgs.gov/infobank/. Person who carried out this activity:
    Cherokee Nation Technology Solutions, contracted to the U.S. Geological Survey
    Attn: Heather A. Schreppel
    IT Management Specialist/Database Support Assistant
    600 4th Street South
    St. Petersburg, FL
    USA

    727-803-8747 ext. 3013 (voice)
    hschreppel@usgs.gov
    Data sources used in this process:
    • l-4-86-nc.320_070.txt
    Data sources produced in this process:
    • l486ncbathy.txt
    Date: 2012 (process 5 of 9)
    The best available bathymetry and navigation text files were concatenated into one tab-delimited file using Excel 2010 and several Visual Basic Applications (VBA) macros. InfoBank header information is removed and text is broken into columns and the rows are combined based on the presence of the same values in the time and latitude and longitude columns. Person who carried out this activity:
    Cherokee Nation Technology Solutions, contracted to the U.S. Geological Survey
    Attn: Heather A. Schreppel
    IT Management Specialist/Database Support Assistant
    600 4th Street South
    St. Petersburg, FL
    USA

    727-803-8747 ext. 3013 (voice)
    hschreppel@usgs.gov
    Data sources used in this process:
    • l486ncbathy.txt, l486ncnav.txt
    Data sources produced in this process:
    • l486ncall.txt
    Date: 2012 (process 6 of 9)
    The combined bathymetry and navigation file was used as an input file into the GEODAS ReFormat to MDG77T program developed by NOAA's NGDC. The program outputs the reformatted data as a tab-delimited .m77t file. The program is available for use at: http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/mgg/gdas/gx_announce.Html Person who carried out this activity:
    Cherokee Nation Technology Solutions, contracted to the U.S. Geological Survey
    Attn: Heather A. Schreppel
    IT Management Specialist/Database Support Assistant
    600 4th Street South
    St. Petersburg, FL
    USA

    727-803-8747 ext. 3013 (voice)
    hschreppel@usgs.gov
    Data sources used in this process:
    • l486ncall.txt
    Data sources produced in this process:
    • l486nc.m77t
    Date: 2012 (process 7 of 9)
    To create the accompanying header files (.h77t), an excel spreadsheet was supplied from NGDC with already populated required field names. For information for header field requirements and definitions see: http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/mgg/dat/geodas/docs/mgd77.pdf. When creating a header file for each cruise, fields were populated in the header spreadsheet based on InfoBank metadata records, digital data file headers, and accompanying publications (often cruise reports) for the survey. If a field was unknown or did not apply to the dataset it was intentionally left blank. Person who carried out this activity:
    Cherokee Nation Technology Solutions, contracted to the U.S. Geological Survey
    Attn: Heather A. Schreppel
    IT Management Specialist/Database Support Assistant
    600 4th Street South
    St. Petersburg, FL
    USA

    727-803-8747 ext. 3013 (voice)
    hschreppel@usgs.gov
    Data sources used in this process: Data sources produced in this process:
    • l486nc.h77t
    Date: 29-Dec-2016 (process 8 of 9)
    Keywords section of metadata optimized for discovery in USGS Coastal and Marine Geology Data Catalog. Person who carried out this activity:
    U.S. Geological Survey
    Attn: Alan O. Allwardt
    Contractor -- Information Specialist
    2885 Mission Street
    Santa Cruz, CA

    831-460-7551 (voice)
    831-427-4748 (FAX)
    aallwardt@usgs.gov
    Date: 13-Oct-2020 (process 9 of 9)
    Added keywords section with USGS persistent identifier as theme keyword. Person who carried out this activity:
    U.S. Geological Survey
    Attn: VeeAnn A. Cross
    Marine Geologist
    384 Woods Hole Road
    Woods Hole, MA

    508-548-8700 x2251 (voice)
    508-457-2310 (FAX)
    vatnipp@usgs.gov
  3. What similar or related data should the user be aware of?
    Hittelman, Allen M., Groman, Robert C., Haworth, Richard T., Holcombe, Troy L., McHendrie, Graig, Smith, Stuart M., and Metzger, Dan R., 2010, The marine geophysical data exchange format - MGD77 / MGD77T: National Geophysical Data Center, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Boulder, CO.

    Online Links:

    Other_Citation_Details: 25 p.

How reliable are the data; what problems remain in the data set?

  1. How well have the observations been checked?
    The validity or accuracy of bathymetry and navigation data is highly qualitative and depends on equipment and operating condition variables. Data quality is unknown, MGD77T files were formatted from InfoBank files identified as best available version.
  2. How accurate are the geographic locations?
    Unspecified
  3. How accurate are the heights or depths?
    Unspecified
  4. Where are the gaps in the data? What is missing?
    Start and end date/times of data according to DAPS group. Reasons for gaps in data varies by cruise, see InfoBank for more details. 
    Navigation Data (l-4-86-nc.070)
YYYYMMDDHHMMSST    YYYYMMDDHHMMSST
198608211601000    198608252113000
198608252119000    198608271738000
198608271857000    198608280521000
198608280542000    198608281106000
198608281133000    198608281334000
198608281340000    198608281606000
198608281613000    198609021915000
198609022056000    198609051500000
YYYYMMDDHHMMSST    YYYYMMDDHHMMSST
Bathymetry Data (l-4-86-nc.320_070)
YYYYMMDDHHMMSST    YYYYMMDDHHMMSST
198608212037000    198608221828000
198608221859000    198608230309000
198608230453000    198608230838000
198608232256000    198608240223000
198608240309000    198608240545000
198608241428000    198608252113000
198608252119000    198608271738000
198608271857000    198608280521000
198608280540000    198608281106000
198608281129000    198609021915000
198609022145000    198609042014000
198609042336000    198609050815000
YYYYMMDDHHMMSST    YYYYMMDDHHMMSST
  5. How consistent are the relationships among the observations, including topology?
    This data set is from one field activity with unknown instrument calibrations. Processed bathymetric depths were spot checked based on latitude and longitude against the Global Multi-Resolution Topography (GMRT) grid within GeoMapApp to ensure reasonable values.

How can someone get a copy of the data set?

Are there legal restrictions on access or use of the data?
Access_Constraints: None. These data are held in the public domain.
Use_Constraints:
This information is not intended for navigational purposes.
Read and fully comprehend the metadata prior to data use. Uses of these data should not violate the spatial resolution of the data. Where these data are used in combination with other data of different resolution, the resolution of the combined output will be limited by the lowest resolution of all the data.
Acknowledge the U.S. Geological Survey in products derived from these data. Share data products developed using these data with the U.S. Geological Survey.

Who wrote the metadata?

Dates:
Last modified: 13-Oct-2020
Metadata author:
Heather A. Schreppel
Cherokee Nation Technology Solutions, contracted to the U.S. Geological Survey
IT Management Specialist/Database Support Assistant
U.S. Geological Survey, 600 Fourth Street South
St. Petersburg, FL
USA

(727) 803-8747, ext. 3013 (voice)
hschreppel@usgs.gov
Metadata standard:
FGDC Content Standards for Digital Geospatial Metadata (FGDC-STD-001-1998)
This page is <https://cmgds.marine.usgs.gov/catalog/spcmsc/DS757_l486nc.faq.html>
Generated by mp version 2.9.50 on Tue Sep 21 18:18:48 2021