Puget Sound High-Resolution CTD/STD Water Profiles, 1973

Puget Sound oceanographic data from January to February 1973, collected via CTD and STD casts from the NOAA Ship McARTHUR. The dataset provides high-resolution vertical profiles of temperature, salinity, density, and potentially dissolved oxygen or transmissivity. Data were processed to the NODC standard F022 format, which may include cruise metadata, station positions, and environmental conditions.

Use Cases

• Analyzing vertical stratification of temperature and salinity in Puget Sound based on high-resolution profile data.
• Studying seasonal water property variations in early 1973 using the time-series of station casts.
• Calibrating regional oceanographic models with historical conductivity-temperature-depth measurements.
• Investigating relationships between computed density (sigma-t) and other measured parameters.

Strengths

• Data is in a standardized, high-resolution format (NODC F022) with depth intervals as fine as 1 meter.
• Provides a focused temporal snapshot of Puget Sound water properties over a defined period in 1973.
• Dataset is hosted on multiple authoritative platforms (NASA Earthdata, Data.gov), indicating vetting and persistence.

Limitations

• Source platforms conflict on the exact collection end date (February 12 vs. February 14, 1973).
• Critical metadata is missing, including specific column names, row count, file size, and license information.
• Data is historical (from 1973) and the last update field appears to be a system artifact, not a content refresh.

Provenance

Source

Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory (PMEL), submitted via NOAA Ship McARTHUR.

Collection Method

Collected using Conductivity-Temperature-Depth (CTD) and Salinity-Temperature-Depth (STD) instrument casts.

Time Range

1973-01-08 to 1973-02-14

Freshness

2026-03-05 23:50:56.845103

Geography

Puget Sound