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Journal for accession number: 0115183
Created on:                    2013-12-19 18:41:36 UTC
By:                            Sheri Phillips,OC1,SSMC3 4700,7133280 x127

Source: These data were submitted to NOAA NODC National Coastal Data
Development Center (NCDDC) by Dr. Harmon Brown of the NOAA Southeast 
Fisheries Science Center Galveston Laboratory.

Actions: After working with Dr. Brown, Julie Bosch of NCDDC placed a
copy of these data on the NODC FTP server. S. Phillips of NODC
downloaded the files CAGES-csv_.zip, CAGES-databases.zip and
CAGES-docs_.zip from the NODC incoming FTP directory and extracted the
files to respective subdirectories in the 0-data directory for this
accession. In accordance with NODC standard procedures, the .zip files 
were deleted after verifying that the contents had been successfully 
extracted.

These data were collected for a cooperative study (A COMPARATIVE ASSESSMENT OF GULF ESTUARINE 
SYSTEMS (CAGES))with state natural resources agencies that was designed to use fishery independent 
monitoring data and compare historical catches from trawl surveys. Data were collected to provide 
an assessment of the abundance, length frequencies, and biomass of 14 species of fish and four 
species of decapod crustaceans that were either abundant in the samples or economically important. 
While the years analyzed varied among states, samples from most estuaries were available and analyzed 
for the years 1986 to 2005. The 24 estuaries analyzed were identified using the Estuarine and Coastal 
Drainage Areas delineated by the U. S. Geological Survey.

Files:
about/
This directory contains files generated by NODC with ancillary information
about the data submission.

0115183_lonlat.txt - Contains sample locations for these data.  Each row
                     contains the geographical position where these data were
                     collected (longitude in the left column and latitude in
                     the right column, both in degrees).  NODC may have 
                     corrected geographic positions that seemed to be in error
                     when generating this file.  However, NODC did not change
                     the original data files under the directory data/0-data/.

0115183_map.jpg - Sample location map for these data.

0-email.txt - Email from data facilitator (NCDDC) indicating that these
data should be archived at NODC.

CAGES_browsemap_NODC_0115183.jpg - Location browse map for estuaries
sampled in this study developed at the NODC.

Standardized_metadata_by_state/ - Subdirectory containing metadata for
each state data group, in Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC)
standard (.txt and .xml files) and in International Standard
Organization (ISO) 19115 format as .xml files.


data/0-data/
This directory contains the data and metadata files as submitted to NODC.

data/0-data/CAGES-databases/ - Original CAGES database files in Microsoft Office Access 
(.accdb) format, subdivided by state (AL, FL, LA, MS, and TX).

NOAATechnicalMemorandumNMFS-SEFSC-647.pdf is included which
provides a study description, methodology, and results. 

data/1-data/
This directory contains data files transformed by NODC for archival purposes.

data/1-data/CAGES-csv/ - ASCII (.csv) copies of the original CAGES database files
subdivided by state (AL, FL, LA, MS, and TX).