About the International Data Assembly Centre

The GEOTRACES International Data Assembly Centre (GDAC) was created in 2008 to guarantee core data is accessible and of value to scientists in future years. The Data Assembly Centre is hosted by the British Oceanographic Data Centre (BODC), located in Liverpool, UK, and is jointly funded by the Scientific Committee on Oceanic Research (SCOR), US National Science Foundation (NSF) and the UK Natural Environment Research Council (NERC).

The International Data Assembly Centre compiles data received from national data offices and from core international GEOTRACES cruises.  Global datasets are created for all key parameters, such as trace metals, e.g. iron (Fe), zinc (Zn), cadmium (Cd) and isotopic measurements e.g. nitrate (δ15NO3), carbon (δ13C), thorium (230Th), and made easily accessible to participating scientists and the larger science community. The policy for data release will be determined by the Scientific Steering Committee (SSC).

The GDAC works closely with the GEOTRACES steering committee and scientists to establish common metadata and format protocols.  We are responsible for the quality control and secure archiving of the data that have been collected during international core GEOTRACES cruises. Data will be submitted to national archive facilities; our aim is to integrate core GEOTRACES data into a global data set.

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