Metadata Report for BODC Series Reference Number 2148399

• Metadata Summary

• Problem Reports

• Data Access Policy

• Narrative Documents

• Project Information

• Data Activity or Cruise Information

• Fixed Station Information

• BODC Quality Flags

• SeaDataNet Quality Flags

Metadata Summary

Problem Reports

No Problem Report Found in the Database

Data Access Policy

Open Data supplied by Natural Environment Research Council (NERC)

You must always use the following attribution statement to acknowledge the source of the information: "Contains data supplied by Natural Environment Research Council."

Narrative Documents

Skalar San+ Autoanalyzer

The San+ Autoanalyzer is an Automated Wet Chemistry Analyzer (Continuous Flow Analyzer) which has been designed as a modular system to measure a variety of water chemistry characteristics, such as nutrient concentrations in seawater. Individual modules are tailored to specific needs. It uses Continuous Flow Analysis (CFA), allowing up to 16 analytical measurements to be made on a single sample simultaneously. The system comprises a sampler, chemistry section, detector and specialist software.

Chemistry section
The San+ includes a chemistry section which has hundreds of applications. It houses up to five chemistry cartridges with built-in dosing pump and air injection systems, up to five interchangeable cartridges with build-in photometric detectors and five separate waste receptacles. The throughput of the analyser depends upon application and can vary from 25 to 120 analyses per hour. It has a double diameter pump deck for accurate dosing with 32 pump tubes, two separated pump decks for 2 x 2 channel concept, and controlled synchronised eight channel air injection with separate built-in compressor for increased flow stability and fast start-up. It has easy access to chemistry cartridges with flexible ultra low carry-over connections between dialysers, reactors, coils, flow cells and other components, leak detection, 3-cuffs long life pump tubes, and has manually operated and automatic rinsing valves for easy automatic start up and overnight operation.

Detectors
The San+ range of detectors comprises dual channel colorimetric detectors, the unique matrix correction detector with automatic background correction for difficult sample matrixes, but also covers a range of detectors for I.R., U.V., fluorimetry, ISE, flame photometry, refractometers, density meters, etc.

Software
The San+ 'Flow Access' windows software package controls the complete analyser, with auto start-up, function control, and auto-scaling, pre-and post run sample dilutions, result calculation and statistics. Up to 16 channels can be handled simultaneously, with multiple samplers, and chemistries can be grouped for analysis.

The San+ is also known as San++.

ThermoFinnigan EA 1112 Flash Elemental Analyser

The ThermoFinnigan EA 1112 Flash Elemental Analyser is designed to determine total carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, sulphur and oxygen in a sample. The sample is completely and instantaneously oxidised by flash combustion, which converts all organic and inorganic substances into combustion products. The resulting combustion gases pass through a reduction furnace and are swept into the chromatographic column by the helium carrier gas. The gases are separated in the column and detected by the thermal conductivity detector which gives an output signal proportional to the concentration of the individual components of the mixture.

ThermoFinnigan is part of the Thermo Fisher Scientific group.

Further details can be found in the manufacturer's specification sheet.

Niskin Bottle

The Niskin bottle is a device used by oceanographers to collect subsurface seawater samples. It is a plastic bottle with caps and rubber seals at each end and is deployed with the caps held open, allowing free-flushing of the bottle as it moves through the water column.

Standard Niskin

The standard version of the bottle includes a plastic-coated metal spring or elastic cord running through the interior of the bottle that joins the two caps, and the caps are held open against the spring by plastic lanyards. When the bottle reaches the desired depth the lanyards are released by a pressure-actuated switch, command signal or messenger weight and the caps are forced shut and sealed, trapping the seawater sample.

Lever Action Niskin

The Lever Action Niskin Bottle differs from the standard version, in that the caps are held open during deployment by externally mounted stainless steel springs rather than an internal spring or cord. Lever Action Niskins are recommended for applications where a completely clear sample chamber is critical or for use in deep cold water.

Clean Sampling

A modified version of the standard Niskin bottle has been developed for clean sampling. This is teflon-coated and uses a latex cord to close the caps rather than a metal spring. The clean version of the Levered Action Niskin bottle is also teflon-coated and uses epoxy covered springs in place of the stainless steel springs. These bottles are specifically designed to minimise metal contamination when sampling trace metals.

Deployment

Bottles may be deployed singly clamped to a wire or in groups of up to 48 on a rosette. Standard bottles and Lever Action bottles have a capacity between 1.7 and 30 L. Reversing thermometers may be attached to a spring-loaded disk that rotates through 180° on bottle closure.

RRS Discovery cruise D341 Particulate concentrations (Organic Carbon, Organic Nitrogen, Calcium and Silicate) from CTD bottles

Originator's Protocol for Data Acquisition and Analysis

Samples for particulate concentration analysis were collected from CTD casts profiled around the Porcupine Abyssal Plain (PAP) site. Niskin bottles were fired at predetermined depths and samples for several parameters were collected, including those for particulate nutrients (Carbon, Nitrogen, Calcium and Silica).

Data collected from 7 CTD casts were sent in a spreadsheet with accompanying metadata (Station ID, Date/time, Latitude, Longitude, CTD bottle number and bottle depth) and quality flags.

The analysis methodology followed by the originator was:

• Particulate Organic Carbon and Nitrogen: 1.5 to 2 l of sampled water were filtered through a 0.8 µm, 25 mm diameter pre-combusted GF/F filters which were placed in Petri dishes at-20°C, acid fumed and analysed using an elemental analyser
• Particulate Calcium: 1 to 1.5 l of sampled water were filtered through 0.8 µm polycarbonate membrane filters , rinsed with slightly alkaline (pH 9) de-ionised water and frozen at-20°C prior to analysis, where they were extracted in 2% nitric acid and analysed using Inductively Plasma Atomic Emission Spectrometry
• Biogenic Silica: 1 to 1.5 l of sampled water were filtered through 0.8 µm polycarbonate filters, digested using 0.2 M sodium hydroxide for four hours at 80°C and neutralised with 0.1 M hydrochloric acid. Silicate concentrations were determined using an autoanalyser.

References Cited

Poulton A.J., Sanders R., Holligan P.M., Stinchcombe M.C., Adey T.R., Brown L. and Chamberlain K., 2006. Phytoplankton mineralization in the tropical and subtropical Atlantic Ocean. Global Biogheochemical Cycles, 20 (4), GB4002.

Instrumentation Description

Water samples were collected from 20 l Niskin bottles mounted on a carousel included in the CTD frame.

BODC Data Processing Procedures

Data were received at BODC in a spreadsheet and originator's parameters were matched against BODC vocabulary dictionary and unit conversions applied where appropriate. Originator's quality flags were kept as they were identical to the ones used at BODC.

The table below presents the matching between the originator's parameters and BODC codes for each variable:

Data Quality Report

A few samples were flagged by the originator as having improbable values (L) and were kept in the BODC database. Null values were also assigned N flags.

Project Information

Oceans 2025 - The NERC Marine Centres' Strategic Research Programme 2007-2012

Who funds the programme?

The Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) funds the Oceans 2025 programme, which was originally planned in the context of NERC's 2002-2007 strategy and later realigned to NERC's subsequent strategy (Next Generation Science for Planet Earth; NERC 2007).

Who is involved in the programme?

The Oceans 2025 programme was designed by and is to be implemented through seven leading UK marine centres. The marine centres work together in coordination and are also supported by cooperation and input from government bodies, universities and other partners. The seven marine centres are:

• National Oceanography Centre, Southampton (NOCS)
• Plymouth Marine Laboratory (PML)
• Marine Biological Association (MBA)
• Sir Alister Hardy Foundation for Marine Science (SAHFOS)
• Proudman Oceanographic Laboratory (POL)
• Scottish Association for Marine Science (SAMS)
• Sea Mammal Research Unit (SMRU)

Oceans2025 provides funding to three national marine facilities, which provide services to the wider UK marine community, in addition to the Oceans 2025 community. These facilities are:

• British Oceanographic Data Centre (BODC), hosted at POL
• Permanent Service for Mean Sea Level (PSMSL), hosted at POL
• Culture Collection of Algae and Protozoa (CCAP), hosted at SAMS

The NERC-run Strategic Ocean Funding Initiative (SOFI) provides additional support to the programme by funding additional research projects and studentships that closely complement the Oceans 2025 programme, primarily through universities.

What is the programme about?

Oceans 2025 sets out to address some key challenges that face the UK as a result of a changing marine environment. The research funded through the programme sets out to increase understanding of the size, nature and impacts of these changes, with the aim to:

• improve knowledge of how the seas behave, not just now but in the future;
• help assess what that might mean for the Earth system and for society;
• assist in developing sustainable solutions for the management of marine resources for future generations;
• enhance the research capabilities and facilities available for UK marine science.

In order to address these aims there are nine science themes supported by the Oceans 2025 programme:

• Climate, circulation and sea level (Theme 1)
• Marine biogeochemical cycles (Theme 2)
• Shelf and coastal processes (Theme 3)
• Biodiversity and ecosystem functioning (Theme 4)
• Continental margins and deep ocean (Theme 5)
• Sustainable marine resources (Theme 6)
• Technology development (Theme 8)
• Next generation ocean prediction (Theme 9)
• Integration of sustained observations in the marine environment (Theme 10)

In the original programme proposal there was a theme on health and human impacts (Theme 7). The elements of this Theme have subsequently been included in Themes 3 and 9.

When is the programme active?

The programme started in April 2007 with funding for 5 years.

Brief summary of the programme fieldwork/data

Programme fieldwork and data collection are to be achieved through:

• physical, biological and chemical parameters sampling throughout the North and South Atlantic during collaborative research cruises aboard NERC's research vessels RRS Discovery, RRS James Cook and RRS James Clark Ross;
• the Continuous Plankton Recorder being deployed by SAHFOS in the North Atlantic and North Pacific on 'ships of opportunity';
• physical parameters measured and relayed in near real-time by fixed moorings and ARGO floats;
• coastal and shelf sea observatory data (Liverpool Bay Coastal Observatory (LBCO) and Western Channel Observatory (WCO)) using the RV Prince Madog and RV Quest.

The data is to be fed into models for validation and future projections. Greater detail can be found in the Theme documents.

Data Activity or Cruise Information

Data Activity

BODC Sample Metadata Report for D341_CTD_16604

Please note:the supplied parameters may not have been sampled from all the bottle firings described in the table above. Cross-match the Sample Reference Number above against the SAMPRFNM value in the data file to identify the relevant metadata.

Related Data Activity activities are detailed in Appendix 1

Cruise

Complete Cruise Metadata Report is available here

Fixed Station Information

No Fixed Station Information held for the Series

BODC Quality Control Flags

The following single character qualifying flags may be associated with one or more individual parameters with a data cycle:

SeaDataNet Quality Control Flags

The following single character qualifying flags may be associated with one or more individual parameters with a data cycle:

Appendix 1: D341_CTD_16604

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