ARCHIVAL POLICIES AND MANAGING PHYSICAL COLLECTIONS FOR THE U.S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY'S COASTAL AND MARINE GEOLOGY PROGRAM

The Woods Hole Science Center (WHSC) of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has been an active member of the research community in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, for over 40 years. In that time there have been many research projects involving the collection and analysis of sediment samples for the purpose of studying seabed environments, benthic habitats and oceanographic and coastal processes. With developing projects and growing collections, maintaining organization and ease of access to historical data has become essential to efficiently satisfy the needs of USGS researchers and their collaborators.

Throughout the course of the past five years, curatorial efforts have been successful in defining protocol and standards for organizing the sample collections of the WHSC, and ensuring the organization and access for the future. USGS Open-File Report 2006-1187 (http://pubs.usgs.gov/of/2006/1187/) provides a guide for curators and collection managers in the process of developing management standards and practices for marine sample archive development, as well as establishing accountability for the samples in the WHSC's care.

Samples returned from the field are immediately accessioned into a central storage facility, where their location, condition and disposition can be managed beyond the duration of the originating project. These samples are preserved in frozen, refrigerated and ambient conditions, dictated by the nature of research performed on them and their longevity in the archive. Metadata about the samples in Open-File Report 2006-1187 and online, in a format consistent with the National Geophysical Data Center's (NGDC's) Index to Marine and Lacustrine Geological Samples.

The sample catalog can be accessed over the internet through the WHSC's Ocean Floor Samples page (http://woodshole.er.usgs.gov/operations/ia/samples.php), which allows text-based searching, as well as through an Internet Map Server (IMS) and a Google Earth KML file geographically displaying the distribution of the samples' collection locations. The catalog is continuously updated as our holdings grow, and reflects the diverse nature of our operations and research.