Paleoceanography

Paleoceanography data are derived from many proxies found in deep-sea sediments including trace metal and isotopic composition of fossil plankton, species composition, and lithology. The World Data Center (WDC) archives data for all times in the past. You are likely to find data relevant to thePast Global Changes (PAGES) and PAGES-CLIVAR timescales in our relational database, while data for older geologic times (more than 1 million years before present) will be found only in the by contributor directory of our FTP site. Coral and mollusk data are archived in their own sub-directories.

Obtaining Data at the World Data Center

Search Datasets

• Paleoceanography Search Engine
  Search through paleoceanography studies using Investigator, Title, Location Name, Parameters, and Latitude/Longitude Bounds.
• Interactive Map
  Select study locations by region, proximity to a point, or text-based attributes.
• Google Earth Map
  Locate and download paleoceanography studies using a Google Earth map interface. Google Earth must be installed to use this search tool.
• Search All Paleoclimatology Data
  Access a free text search of our entire study archive.
• Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) Catalog Service for the Web
  ​Harvest paleoclimate study metadata records using an OGC web service.

Browse Datasets

• List of Paleoceanography Datasets by Title and Investigator
• List of Paleoceanography Datasets by Location Name
• Paleoceanography Datasets from Our FTP Site

Paleoceanography Projects

• Climate: Long-range Investigation, Mapping, and Prediction (CLIMAP)
  A major initiative to produce a map of climate conditions during the last glacial maximum.
• Healy-Oden Trans Arctic Expedition (HOTRAX)
  Grain size, X-Ray fluorescence (XRF), and reflectance data from the Arctic.
• Multiproxy Approach for the Reconstruction of the Glacial Ocean Surface (MARGO)
  Integrated microfossil and geochemical reconstructions of surface temperatures and assessments of the reliability of individual records.
• Nitrogen Cycle in the Ocean, Past and Present (NICOPP)
  A database of global ocean marine sedimentary d15N measurements from both seafloor samples and sub-seafloor records.
• Spectral Mapping Project (SPECMAP)
  Global archive of planktonic counts and isotope values, age and sea surface temperature models, and sea surface temperature estimates.
• Relative Sea Level Database
  Radiocarbon-controlled relative sea level histories from 392 sites around the globe.
• LDEO Calcium Carbonate Database
  This dataset contains calcium carbonate percentage data from 295 marine sediment cores, as well as ¹⁴C dates or age models as available.
• Fossil Plankton Stratigraphies
  Foraminifer census counts and sea surface temperature estimates derived from marine sediment cores from the North Atlantic Ocean.

Contributing Data

Investigators who wish to contribute their data to our paleoclimatology archive can find information on contributing below. Data and study description information can be contributed by emailing completed data contribution templates to paleo@noaa.gov.

• General Information on Contributing Data

Other Data Archives

Additional sources outside of NCEI for data and information on oceanography, marine sediment, and climate science.

• Index to Marine and Lacustrine Geological Samples (IMLGS)
• Marine Geology and Geophysics at the National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI)
• Ocean Drilling Program Janus Database
• PANGAEA Earth and Environmental Science Database
• International Marine Global Change Study (IMAGES)