This data release provides a summary of the absolute percent composition of all recovered material and relative percent composition of coral taxa in the Holocene-aged intervals of 61 coral-reef cores collected throughout the Florida Keys reef tract (FKRT) housed in the USGS Core Archive in St. Petersburg, FL (Estimated ages for distinct depths within each core are also provided; those ages were either measured by radiometric dating of coral samples at those depths or estimated by linear interpolation between measured ages. A complete dataset of all measured ages in the cores is available at https://doi.org/10.5066/F7NV9HJX (Toth and others, 2018).Estimated paleodepths of the equivalent depths observed in the coral cores acquired from 1976 to 2017 were determined by extracting the relative sea level (RSL) for each age in the cores from the model of Holocene RSL in south Florida developed by Khan and others (2017). For further information regarding data collection and analysis methods refer to the associated journal article (Toth and others, 2019). This research is a part of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Coral Reef Ecosystem Studies Project (https://coastal.er.usgs.gov/crest/).

In 2010, a video camera was installed near the northern boundary of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration-Kennedy Space Center (NASA-KSC) property along the Atlantic coast of Florida. A region extending 1 kilometer (km) to the south of the camera was established as the region of interest for the video image observations. During every daylight hour of camera operation from August 8, 2011 to July 24, 2012, a time exposure (timex) image product was created by averaging pixel color intensity for all frames collected during a 10-minute video at 2 frames per second (hertz, Hz). One timex image per day was used for analysis. The timex selected for each day was the product that was created when the tide level was closest to the Mean High Water (MHW) at the study site. Based on observed water levels from a nearby National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) station, the MHW was determined to be 0.23 meters (m) above the North American Vertical Datum of 1988 (NAVD88) (NOAA, 2018). The shoreline was manually identified as the wet-dry line within the region of interest of each available timex product. Each day’s MHW timex product was rectified to a horizontal map and converted to local and world coordinate systems, with the camera centered at the origin, using the established photogrammetric techniques outlined in Holland and others (1997). However, timex products were not available for about half of this timeframe due to camera malfunctions, adverse weather conditions (for example, fog), and/or a lack of daylight during the timing of MHW. The average gap between observations is 2 days, with the largest gap being 12 days. Please carefully review the metadata for more information.

This data release compiles descriptive information (location, water depth, etc.) and radiometric ages from corals collected through the Southeast Florida Continental Reef Tract (SFCRT; Figure 1). The database includes data from studies published between 1977 and 2015 as well as previously unpublished data. The samples were originally collected using coral-reef coring or other geologic sampling methods. Many of the samples are presently stored in the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Core Archive at the St. Petersburg Coastal and Marine Science Center in St. Petersburg, Florida (https://doi.org/10.5066/F7319TR3). This research is a part of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Coral Reef Ecosystem Studies Project (https://coastal.er.usgs.gov/crest/).

In 2016, U.S. Geological Survey St. Petersburg Coastal and Marine Science Center (USGS SPCMSC) researchers and academic collaborators collected cores of mangrove peat from two islands in the Florida Keys: Snipe Key (24.679°N, 81.653°W) and Swan Key (25.349°N, 80.251°W). This data release contains the radiocarbon ages and associated data for peat samples analyzed throughout the two cores (SNK-16-C1 and SBC-16-C10).

This database contains a comprehensive inventory of geologic (coral, coral reef, limestone, and sediment) cores and samples collected, analyzed, published, and/or archived by, or in collaboration with, the U.S. Geological Survey St. Petersburg Coastal and Marine Science Center (USGS SPCMSC). The SPCMSC Geologic Core and Sample Database includes geologic cores and samples collected beginning in the 1970s to present day, from study sites across the world. This database captures metadata about samples throughout the USGS Science Data Lifecycle: including field collection, laboratory analysis, publication of research, and archival or deaccession. For more information about the USGS Science Data Lifecycle, see USGS Open-File Report 2013-1265 (https://doi.org/10.3133/ofr20131265). The SPCMSC Geologic Core and Sample Database also includes storage locations for physical samples and cores archived in a repository (USGS SPCMSC or elsewhere, if known). The majority of the samples and cores in this database come from field activities associated with the SPCMSC and have been assigned a field activity number (FAN) in the field activity management and data inventory tool for USGS Coastal and Marine Hazards and Resources Program (CMHRP) Coastal and Marine Geoscience Data System (CMGDS), https://cmgds.marine.usgs.gov/. Some cores and samples were retroactively assigned FANs based on existing metadata and published information. Cores and samples without FANs indicate there is insufficient information regarding collection of the core(s) or sample(s) needed in order to assign a field activity number in CMGDS. Please see the supplemental information section of the metadata for more information about FANs. All samples and cores contained in this database are described in published research. The database contains a link to the FAN page within the CMGDS for each sample or core where associated publications can be accessed. For a complete list of fields used in this database, please refer to the entity and attribute information section of this metadata record.

In July of 2016, Florida Institute of Technology researchers, in collaboration with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), conducted reef-census surveys at 54 sites around Buck Island Reef National Monument, St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands. The sites are divided across two reef sectors (North and South) and three reef habitats (fore reef, reef crest, and back reef). The surveys provided data on the percent coverage of corals and other benthic taxa, and abundance of bioeroding parrotfishes and urchins.

This web mapping application is a compilation of geoscientific data collected and published by the U.S. Geological Survey St. Petersburg Coastal and Marine Science Center (USGS SPCMSC). This application does not serve as a complete archive of all the geoscientific data collected by the center, but highlights frequently published data types. Data within this web application include: seismic data extents, seismic survey tracklines (boomer, chirp, and minisparker), bathymetric footprints, bathymetric (singlebeam, multibeam and/or interferometric swath) Digital Elevation Models (DEMs), light detection and ranging (lidar) footprints, side-scan sonar mosaics, and geologic cores and samples (coral, coral reef, limestone, and sediment). The web application was published using Esri's (Environmental Systems Research Institute) ArcGIS Online's Web AppBuilder.

U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) staff created geographic information system (GIS) footprints to show the extent of light detection and ranging (lidar) datasets published by the USGS St. Petersburg Coastal and Marine Science Center (SPCMSC), since 2001. These lidar datasets were published as LAS, XYZ, or Digital Elevation Model (DEM) outputs of coastal, submerged and/or terrestrial topography in USGS Data Series (DS), Open-File Reports (OFR), and data releases (DR). Please see the publications listed in the source information section of this metadata record for details on data acquisition and processing of the datasets included in this data release. Using tools included in Global Mapper (GM) GIS software, polygons were generated to represent the coverage area of data provided in multiple USGS lidar publications. These footprints were later merged into one shapefile containing information about the field activity number (fan), field activity source link (fan_url; added in version 2.0), publication type (pub), publication source link (pub_url), lidar return type (returntype), and year the data were collected (yr_collect) to serve as an easily accessible data inventory. This data release will be updated and versioned, as needed, as more lidar publications are released from the USGS SPCMSC.