All the world's a stage...

In the realms of understanding the oceans, William Shakepeare's phrase "All the world's a stage" from As You Like It seems somewhat fitting. To 'break a leg' for the 'oceans' play, the cast must represent the entire globe and the players take the stage to share expertise and dialogue at every opportunity.
 

William Shakespeare ©

'Oceans': Act IMDIS, Scene MMXIII

The International Marine Data and Information Systems (IMDIS) conference was held in Lucca, Italy from 23 – 25 September 2013.

The conference promoted the meeting of different international communities working in informatics, data management, research and environmental protection. Its focus was online access to data, metadata (information about data) and products and the communication of standards and technology to ensure interoperability.

The four streams of the conference highlighted

1. Marine information and data management
2. Marine environmental databases: infrastructures and data access systems
3. Data services in ocean sciences
4. Services for users and education

Contributions from British Oceanographic Data Centre (BODC) delegates provided significant, well-received input across all streams, in both oral and poster sessions, on topics ranging from future technical directions for marine data systems to the creation of educational resources as part of a data rescue project.

Members of BODC staff were also involved in a wide range of side discussions at the meeting, covering topics such as integrating biological data within the European SeaDataNet system and making data citable in the scientific literature and Linked Data for oceanography. It is also very encouraging that BODC systems, particularly the NERC Vocabulary Server, were referenced in many other presentations - indicating true interoperability.

BODC references

Linked Data: An Oceanographic Perspective 
A. Leadbetter, R. Arko, C. Chandler and R. Lowry

MyOcean In-Situ Thematic Center: A service for operational Oceanography 
S. Pouliquen, T. Carval, D. Guillotin, C. Coatanoan, T. Loubrieu, A. Grouazel, K. Von Schuckmann, H. Wedhe, L. Sjur Ringheim, T. Hammarklint, A. Hartman, K.Soetje, T. Gies, M. De Alfonso, L. Perivoliotis, D. Kassis, A. Chalkiopoulos, V. Marinova, P. Jaccard, A.B. Ledang, K. Sorensen, G. Notarstefano, J. Tintore, Seppo.Kaitala, P. Roiha, L. Rickards and G. Manzella

Semantically-enhanced Aggregation of SeaDataNet Data   
R. Lowry, A. Leadbetter and M. Vinci

FixO³: The next phase of Open Ocean observatory Data Management Harmonisation  
M. Pagnani, R. Huber and R. Lampitt

MEDIN - A UK Partnership for Managing Marine Data and Information   
D. Cotton, T. Allen and L. Rickards

Progress in developing the ICSU World Data System 
L. Rickards, J-B. Minster and M. Mokrane

EMODNet Physical Parameters 
A. Novellino, G. Manzella, D. Schaap, P.Gorringe, L. Rickards and S. Pouliquen

IODE Data Quality Flag Scheme  
C. Chandler, S. Konovalov, H. Garcia, R. Schlitzer, L. Devine, G. Moncoiffé, T. Suzuki, A. Kozyr and G. Reed

Publishing and Citing Ocean Data  
L. Raymond, C. Chandler, A. Leadbetter, E. Urban, P. Pissierssens and L. Pikula

General Bathymetric Chart of the Oceans (GEBCO) - Global Bathymetric Data Sets   
P. Weatherall and R. Lowry

The ICES Data Type Guidelines and their place and role in the profusion of guidelines, manuals, standards, cookbooks and best practice 
L. Rickards, T. De Bruin, N. Holdsworth, H. Parner, S. Ringheim Lid and G. Dawson

Rescue of historical UK sea level charts and ledgers - creation of Open Educational Resources (OERs)    
L. Rickards, E. Bradshaw and J. Andrew

All presented at IMDIS 2013 Lucca, Italy

GEBCO Gazetteer of Undersea Feature Names

The General Bathymetric Chart of the Oceans (GEBCO) Gazetteer of Undersea Feature Names is now available to view and download via a web map application.
 

The Gazetteer of Undersea Feature Names interface ©

This public interface to the Gazetteer provides the ability to search for, view and download information. The data are available in a number of formats including spreadsheet, shapefile, KML, WMS and ArcGIS layer and can be accessed as a REST-style API. 

It is hosted by the International Hydrographic Organization Data Centre for Digital Bathymetry (IHO DCDB), co-located with the US National Geophysical Data Center (NGDC).

The GEBCO Sub-Committee on Undersea Feature Names (SCUFN) maintains and distributes the Gazetteer, which provides information on over 3,600 seafloor features. Examples include: the Mid-Atlantic Ridge and the Challenger Deep, the deepest point in the oceans, located in the Mariana Trench in the Northwest Pacific Ocean.

SCUFN was formed to meet the need for a uniform policy for the standardisation of undersea feature names and to facilitate the consistent naming on bathymetric maps and nautical charts. Therefore SCUFN also provides detailed naming guidelines and standard nomenclature used to define undersea features (e.g. canyon, plateau, fracture zone) and considers new undersea feature name proposals at yearly meetings.

Find out more about the work of SCUFN including

• how to submit a name proposal
• the defintions of generic terms used to describe undersea features

Other GEBCO products include global gridded bathymetric data sets that are maintained and made available, on behalf of GEBCO, by the British Oceanographic Data Centre (BODC). These data sets, including grids, bathymetric contour, trackline control and coastline data sets are included as part of the GEBCO Digital Atlas, which is distributed by BODC on DVD.

Find out more about GEBCO work at BODC.