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Geosphere is the solid part of the earth
consisting of the crust and outer mantle which is made mostly of
rock and
regolith. The geosphere is characterized by many features, mineral
distributions, processes and others some of which are critical for the
socio-welfare and development of humans. This page focuses on several key issues
related to the geosphere.
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Geohazards - Geohazards comprise of all
natural hazards such as earthquakes, tsunamis, and volcanoes affect both
coastal and inland areas. Long-term data from these events, including
photographs, can be used to establish the past record of natural hazard
event occurrences. These data are also important for planning, response, and
mitigation of future events. [US
NGDC Website]
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Historical Geophysical Surveys - Marine
Trackline Geophysics data surveys contains bathymetric, magnetic & gravity
navigation data collected during marine cruises from 1953 to the present.
The digital databases are holding by the National Geophysical Data Center (NGDC)
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Minerals: The NGDC
Marine Geology
Inventory provides access to all marine geology data archived by, and
available through NGDC, regardless of data format.
Marine geologic data
types include descriptions and analyses of marine sediment and hard rock samples
and types of minerals identified from projects such as the Deep Sea Drilling
Project (DSDP) and the Internation Ocean Drilling Program (ODP). Other
parameters include collecting institution, ship, cruise, sample identifier,
date, latitude/longitude, water depth in corrected meters, type of sampling
device, and type (s) of descriptive/analytical data available through NGDC and
the World Data Center for MGG,
Boulder for each sample.
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Sediments: Sediment thickness data were
compiled by the National Geophysical Data Center (NGDC)
and are intended to provide a minimum value for the thickness of the
sediment.
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Soils: Soils data comprise, soil profile depth (a measurement
from the surface to the bottom of the soil profile); soil slope (an average
topographical slope for each square, it reflects all the soil regime); soil
texture (the relative proportion of the various separates in a soil
described by the percent clay, sand and slit); soil type (a classification
basis of size, and degree of distinctness into types Data are from Soil
Characteristics from FAO.
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Land Cover: The land cover classifications at
1 km spatial resolution is developed as well as to provide global land cover
products for immediate use in global change research. In addition to
describing vegetative cover according to topological schemes,
representatives vegetative cover more realistically as gradients and mosaics
of cover types are made.
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