The paper presents the results of studies of ferromanganese deposits in the Hawaiian Archipelago. The chemical composition of ferromanganese oxide crusts and their associated substrates was determined by two methods. Atomic absorption spectrophotometry was used for the analysis of Fe, Mn, Co, Cu, Ni and AI, and Ti was determined by X-ray fluorescence using Energy Dispersive Analysis of X-rays (EDAX). Sample preparation and analytical procedures have been described in detail by Frank et al., 1976 (see related to: reference). The results of replicate analyses and the comparison to the Marine Standard Nodule (GRLD-126) (NSF-IDOE Manganese Nodule Project, unpubl, data) indicate that both precision and accuracy are in the range of 5-10% for each element.

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1989 NOAA-NCEI compiled the NOAA-MMS Marine Minerals Geochemical Database from journal articles, technical reports and unpublished sources from other institutions.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 datasets represents the digitized Appendix 1, pp. 153-154 of the related publication.