USING METADATA TO AUTOMATE THE PROCESS FROM COLLECTION TO ONLINE ACCESS FOR A MULTIBEAM BATHYMETRIC DATA BASE

The NOAA/National Geophysical Data Center (NGDC) manages a MultiBeam Bathymetric Data Base (MBBDB - map.ngdc.noaa.gov/website/mgg/multibeam/viewer.htm) that became available online for the international marine data community in 2003. NGDC recently started to document a standard data submittal plan to use with those who collect the data most frequently including the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory (LDEO) of Columbia University. Those that collect the data less frequently are directed to the NGDC online data submittal website. The plan in general has allowed NGDC to standardize the process of receiving, archiving, and providing the data online with a more controlled vocabulary. The LDEO recently provided a server of metadata from their Marine Geoscience Data System (MGDS – www.marine-geo.org) data base that NGDC will check on a weekly basis. This server will allow the NGDC to search the MGDS metadata files consistently for new data. Once the data are retrieved they are manually checked for duplication, and then automatically piped into the MBBDB using various internal scripts and programs. After the data are manually checked for deficient trackline results and verified as acceptable, they are posted for the online community to download and/or generate color relief maps. This effort is intended to streamline the process from the data collector to the online data access, near real time.