The primary objective of the U.S. GLOBal ocean ECosystem dynamics program (U.S. GLOBEC) is to understand the underlying physical and biological processes that control the population dynamics of key populations of marine animals in space and time. As part of U.S. GLOBEC, the U.S. GLOBEC Georges Bank Program is a large multi-disciplinary multi-year oceanographic effort. The goal is to understand the population dynamics of key species on Georges Bank - Cod, Haddock, and two species of zooplankton - in terms of their coupling to the physical environment and in terms of their predators and prey. The Program Service and Data Management Office is responsible for providing the basic common services, logistical support, and data management required by the scientific investigators (and the Program) as they conduct their field research, analyze the data from their individual efforts, and integrate the results with those from other research components. During the Phase III, the office will manage data sets (CTD, biomass, meteorological, satellite, model results, etc.) from an estimated seventy-five scientific investigators and make these available via an on-line, World Wide Web based, data management system; work with principal investigators on data quality control; maintain an inventory and program thesaurus of strictly defined field names; support field operations (estimated to be 25 cruises in 1999); reproduce and distribute program documentation including cruise and data reports, and data acquisition procedures and protocols; ensure submission of data to national data centers; support and encourage data synthesis by providing new, on-line, web-based display tools; and facilitate program, national, and international data and information exchange..
