The cores described were taken by the personnel of the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory (LDEO) on the Drift Station Alpha in the Arctic Ocean from August 1957 until June 1958. A total of 16 cores were recovered and are available at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory for sampling and study.

This data is part of the International Geophysical Year, 1957-1958.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1989 NOAA-NCEI compiled the NOAA-MMS Marine Minerals Geochemical Database from journal articles, technical reports and unpublished sources from other institutions.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.

Supplement to: Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory (1958): Drift Station Alpha - Descriptions of Cores. Lamont Geological Observatory, Columbia University, New York, unpublished