Beaufort Sea Plankton Net Cast Data 1980-1984

Plankton and other data were collected via net casts from the vessel PETER PAN in the Beaufort Sea. The dataset covers a four-year period from April 1980 to June 1984 and was produced by the National Marine Fisheries Service under the Outer Continental Shelf Environmental Assessment Program. It represents a specific environmental assessment effort in the Arctic region.

Use Cases

• Analyzing plankton community composition changes over a four-year period in the Beaufort Sea.
• Establishing historical baselines for Arctic marine ecosystems prior to modern industrial activity.
• Correlating plankton data with other environmental parameters collected during the OCSEAP project.
• Studying seasonal and interannual variability in Arctic primary producer populations.

Strengths

• Data collection spans a multi-year time series from 1980-04-09 to 1984-06 11.
• Project was conducted under a formal environmental assessment program (OCSEAP), suggesting structured methodology.
• Dataset is hosted on multiple authoritative platforms (NASA Earthdata and Data.gov), indicating vetting and importance.

Limitations

• Specific column names, row counts, and file formats are unknown across all sources.
• Sources conflict on the last updated date (1980-06-11 vs. 2026-03-06), creating uncertainty about metadata maintenance.
• The license for use and redistribution is not specified.

Provenance

Source

National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) / NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI).

Collection Method

Collected using net casts from the vessel PETER PAN.

Time Range

1980-04-09 to 1984-06-11

Freshness

2026-03 06 00:26:32.446662

Geography

Beaufort Sea