South Carolina Coastal Erosion Study Data Report for Observations : October 2003 - April 2004

FIELD PROGRAM Instruments to measure water flow, sea level, conductivity, temperature, surface wave characteristics, near-bottom turbulence, suspended sediment concentrations, and sea floor bedforms (ripples) were deployed and recovered at nine locations in Long Bay, South Carolina from October 2003 through April 2004.
Instrumentation was recovered and replaced at each location once during the deployment period in late January 2004. The instruments were deployed and recovered aboard the R/V Dan Moore, a research vessel owned and operated by Cape Fear Community College in Wilmington, North Carolina.
DATA PROCESSING
Data processing was conducted using the proprietary software for each instrument, and (or) specialized software developed by the USGS. The proprietary software was often used to download data from the instruments and export the data to ASCII-files. Post-processing of the raw binary or ASCII files was accomplished using USGS software developed in the Matlab® (http://www.mathworks.com/) programming language. Most Matlab® M-files used for post-processing are available via the World Wide Web (WWW) (links provided). Those that are not available via the WWW are included in this report (see the Matlab® m-files page).
Data were first decoded and calibrated from instrument-specific formats and units to the EPIC-standard NetCDF format (http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/epic/) and scientific units. Data were carefully checked for instrument malfunctions and then edited. The beginning and end of each data series were truncated to remove data collected out of water. The data were carefully checked at each stage of processing. After final editing, the best basic version of the data file includes all variables recorded at the basic sampling interval. Best basic versions of all data files in NetCDF format are included in this report.
These data have been edited to remove wild points and data recorded when the instruments were out of the water before and after deployment.
Biological fouling often degrades acoustical and optical data after several months of deployment. Organisms grow on the instrument transducers and gradually block acoustical pulses and light transmission, which results in a gradual upward drift of the beam attenuation coefficient. Care has been exercised to remove most data that has been affected by biofouling.
Significant tilt of the ADCP at Site 5 resulted in complete data loss for that site. All data should be used and interpreted with care.

The metadata from the Open-File report was edited to remove errors as well as update some information. Edits include updating adding the DOI link in the identification section, added supplemental information with link to the field activity pages on CMGDS, added the USGS Thesaurus and ISO 19115 Topic Category thesaurus, added keywords section with USGS persistent identifier as theme keyword, used a generic email address in metadata, updated digital transfer information, replaced distribution liability with FSP statement, added the remaining distribution information including the online distribution. Filled in empty required fields. The metadata date (20060601), but not the contact (except email and contact instructions) was updated. The metadata available from a harvester may supersede metadata available from the publication. Compare the metadata dates to determine which metadata file is most recent.