All oceans (including European, Arctic, Mediterranean)

Mineralogical composition; Metadata parameters

Inapplicable

The Mineralogy Department has a large collection of ocean bottom deposits from all oceans with excellent representation of British and North Sea samples. These date back to the last century, as well as more recent samples. Up until 1986, the Department received all the samples taken by H.M. Navy survey ships working on the 'European-British' continental shelf. Since 1986, samples from H.M. Navy go to the British Geological Survey, Marine Services Branch. Samples are made available to universities and institutions for research. In- house research ceased in 1986. A database containing the location and other data is updated regularly, and should be available over the UK Joint Academic Network (JANET) later in 1993. Data are stored on hard disk on PC using 'Advanced Revelation' (a U.S. commercial package) but this may be changed in 1993/94. Information stored includes: position coordinates, depth, name of ship, station number, date of collection and a Natural History Museum number which is used for specimen identification and retrieval.

Department of Zoology, Natural History Museum
Department of Zoology, Cromwell Road
London

SW7 5BD
United Kingdom