International Nickel Company (INCO) as a large operator of nickel mines investigated the mining potential of manganese nodules in the Pacific Ocean. It became interested in deep-ocean mining for manganese nodules as early as 1958, but it was not until late in 1971 that INCO opened its Ocean Mining Development office in Bellevue, WA. During those early years, INCO contracted with outside organizations such as the Scripps Institution Scripps Institution of Oceanography (SIO). This datatable reports on the particular assessment work made for INCO by Lonsdale P. from SIO in the vicinity of the Manihiki Plateau, Pacific Ocean. Manganese nodules were retrieved from the Manihiki Plateau area in the Pacific Ocean during cruise CH100 of the R/V Chain. Their chemical composition was determined using atomic absorption spectrophotometry.

From 1983 until 1989 NOAA-NCEI compiled the NOAA-MMS Marine Minerals Geochemical Database from journal articles, technical reports and unpublished sources from other institutions. At the time it was the most extended data compilation on ferromanganese deposits world wide. Initially published in a proprietary format incompatible with present day standards it was jointly decided by AWI and NOAA to transcribe this legacy data into PANGAEA. This transfer is augmented by a careful checking of the original sources when available and the encoding of ancillary information (sample description, method of analysis...) not present in the NOAA-MMS database.