Documentation
Cruises associated with GEOTRACES require high standards of data management. To meet these requirements, the cruise Principal Scientist is expected to submit pre-cruise and post-cruise metadata to the GEOTRACES International Data Assembly Centre (GDAC). This information will help the whole GEOTRACES community keep track of up-coming cruises.
Pre-cruise information
The pre-cruise metadata form - designed to collate information relevant to proposed data collection activities - should be completed by the Principal Scientist and sent to the GDAC.
To help GDAC manage sample data all cruises associated with GEOTRACES are required to keep a detailed event logs and detailed CTD logs. Example logs are provided; event log, CTD log, underway sample log.
Post-cruise information
After the cruise, the Principal Scientist is required to submit the following to the GDAC
- A Cruise Summary Report (CSR) form (formerly known as ROSCOPs) — within two weeks
- Electronic or paper copies of all event and log sheets — within two weeks
- A post-cruise metadata form updates the information already provided on the pre -cruise metadata form- (should be completed by the Principal Scientist and sent to the GDAC within two weeks).
- A cruise report (a guide to cruise report writing is available) — within six months
- Processed CTD and underway data
Data submission
When submitting data to GEOTRACES, scientists are expected to provide accompanying metadata. The data submission metadata form outlines the minimum amount of metadata required to preserve the data for future use.
Additional useful information
- The IMBER Data Management Cookbook — A Project Guide to good Data practices
