TIGER Program: Gulf of Mexico Water Chemistry Profiles, February 1990

Gulf of Mexico water column data was collected from the R/V Gyre over six days in February 1990 under the Texas Institutions Gulf Ecosystem Research (TIGER) program. The dataset contains profiles of salinity, oxygen, ammonia, phosphate, urea, silica, nitrate, and nitrite, alongside CTD data, but explicitly lacks temperature measurements. Processed station data is available in the NODC F-022 CTD high-resolution format.

Use Cases

• Analyzing nutrient concentration gradients (nitrate, phosphate, silica) to assess marine productivity.
• Studying water column stratification using salinity and oxygen profiles from CTD data.
• Investigating nitrogen cycling by comparing concentrations of ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, and urea.
• Calibrating or validating regional biogeochemical models for the Gulf of Mexico.

Strengths

• Data collection is precisely documented with specific vessel (R/V Gyre), time range (1990-02-19 to 1990-02-24), and grant details (MMS grant # 14-35-0001-30501).
• Cross-platform presence on Data.gov and NASA EarthData suggests established curation and importance for long-term archives.

Limitations

• Critical metadata is missing: row count, file size, column names, and license are unknown across all sources.
• A significant data gap is explicitly noted: the profiles contain no temperature measurements.
• Sources conflict on the last update date: Data.gov lists 2026-03-05, while NASA EarthData lists the collection end date of 1990-02-24.

Provenance

Source

Data submitted by Dr. Murphy from Texas A&M, collected under Dr. Douglas C. Biggs for the TIGER program.

Collection Method

Collected via ship-based CTD casts and water sampling in the Gulf of Mexico.

Time Range

1990-02-19 to 1990-02-24

Freshness

2026-03-05 (from Data.gov, though this may reflect a metadata refresh rather than data update)

Geography

Gulf of Mexico