Beginning in 1983 the USGS searched major oceanographic institution dredge archives for samples and data relevant to the USGS Woods-Hole Ferromanganese Crust Data Base. With the cooperation of the institutions more than 600 samples were collected from twelve institutions and brought to the U.S. Geological Survey Branch of Atlantic Marine Geology in Woods Hole, Mass, for geochemical analysis. Preparation for a sampling visit began with dredge catalogs and ferro-manganese sample descriptions sent by the institutions. In order not to deplete valuable dredge materials, samples were kept as small as possible yet still consistent with optimum analytical quantities (<50 g). The best way to collect valid samples for chemical analysis was to see the entire contents of the original dredge and then choose a representative sample. However, the amount of sample taken depended in part on the size of the dredge haul, and the amount of Mn crust on the sample. To get the required amount of crust needed for analysis, more substrate and crust had to be taken from samples which had thin manganese encrustations than from samples which had thicker encrustations. Visited collections were: Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Smithsonian Institute, Scripps institute of oceanography, University of Southern California, University of Miami, Florida State University, Hawaii Institute of Geophysics, University of Washington, Oregon State University, Naval Oceanographic Research and Development Activity (NORDA) and the Lamont-Doherty Geological Observatory. The attached table presents the description of USGS Woods-Hole selected samples which had not been previously described in the PANGAEA database.

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1989 NOAA-NCEI compiled the NOAA-MMS Marine Minerals Geochemical Database from journal articles, technical reports and unpublished sources from other institutions.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.This dataset represents the digitized Appendix A - pp. 1-61 of the related publication.