In a Nutshell

dbSEABED efficiently integrates thousands of individual data

  • deals with the nature of the seabed
  • creates detailed GIS maps of the seabed

Comprehensive, detailed and accurate mapping of key seafloor feature

  • Numerous ways to utilize available data
  • Over 6 million data points (worldwide)
    • 11.400 input data sets
    • 4.843.589 described seabed sites
    • 211.468 described drilling sites
    • 6.787.190 observed/analysed sample

The largest seabed database in the world

dbSEABED is an ocean information system, directed to a better understanding of the entire world's ocean floor: the seabed - its composition, structure, and physical properties.

The motivation for this long-term project is better human custodianship of the oceans. It does this by increasing public awareness of the oceans, and by helping advances in research, technology, and maritime laws.

Recent projects have been in fisheries management, carbon, human impacts on the seafloor, seafloor movement under extreme storms, and the hydrodynamics of objects.

dbSEABED has large advantages as a system. It covers all zones from coastal to the distant deep-ocean, from pole to pole. It is a research collaboration, unaffected by national boundaries.

In order to characterize the seabed with good resolution, the system amasses multitudes of diverse data sets (total 6 million observations) and employs unique methods for merging word-descriptive and numeric-analytical datatypes.

Data comes in from the geo- and bio- sciences, engineering, navigation and defence, ocean resources, and even tourism - all to build a representative, unbiased coverage. The output data addresses seabed strengths, grainsizes, mesoscale features, colors and bulk chemistry. The integrated, quality-controlled products interface straightforwardly with client tasks in ocean mapping and statistics, machine learning, and numerical process-modeling.

Outputs available to users

Outputs available to users

  • Pointwise data at the level of individual samples and observations, integrated and harmonized from the inputs of the third-party datasets. Formatted as text tables, CSV, Shapefiles, Pandas, etc.
  • Rasterized (cellwise) data with statistics of the averages and variances. Formatted as ESRI grids, GeoTiffs, NetCDF, etc.
  • Interpolated mappings rendered as griddings, or vectorized to Shapefiles. Formatted as ESRI grids, GeoTiffs, NetCDF, etc.
  • Specialized visualizations of coring results and subbottom distributions. Formatted as VRML, database, etc.
  • The parameters supplied are sediment textures (gravel, sand, mud, grainsize average and sorting, Folk codes); composition (carbonate, organic carbon); grain types; mesoscopic features; seabed colour, roughness dimensions.  

The project always appreciates new data to add to the system and information from users on their applications for the data.

Team

Chris J. Jenkins

Dr. Chris J. Jenkins

Founder, Initiator, CEO dbSEABED

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Daniel Klembt

Dr.-Ing. Daniel Klembt

Head of the experimental and numerical data acquisition group

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Cooperating companies