Sargassum Habitat and Fisheries Management in the Northern Gulf of Mexico

Northern Gulf of Mexico measurements collected for a project linking pelagic Sargassum habitat to fisheries recruitment. The dataset is managed by NASA in collaboration with the University of South Florida (USF) and the University of Southern Mississippi (USM). It contains oceanographic measurements relevant to habitat evaluation.

Use Cases

• Analyzing relationships between Sargassum presence and fish recruitment using habitat linkage data.
• Modeling ocean temperature and salinity conditions in the Northern Gulf of Mexico.
• Studying ocean optics and chemistry to understand Sargassum bloom environments.
• Evaluating pelagic habitat importance for regional fisheries management strategies.

Strengths

• Dataset is hosted by NASA, indicating a high standard for data curation and metadata.
• Cross-platform presence on Data.gov and NASA Earthdata signals importance and reliability.
• Includes specific measurements for ocean chemistry, optics, temperature, and salinity.

Limitations

• Critical metadata conflicts: row count, size, and specific column names are unknown across all sources.
• The listed last update date of 2026-03 13 appears to be a future date, indicating a potential metadata error.
• Data file formats (BIN, ISO) are non-standard and may require specialized tools for access and analysis.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), with collaboration from USF and USM.

Collection Method

Field measurements made under the 'Linking habitat to recruitment' research project.

Time Range

null

Freshness

2026-03-13 01:29:41.751487

Geography

Northern Gulf of Mexico