Marine geoscience is increasingly relying on easy internet access to quantitative information.
Geoscience Australia has created an on-line relational national MARine Samples (MARS) database that contains data collected for Australia';s seabed.
The maintenance and population of MARS addresses the need for a comprehensive national inventory of seabed properties.
Data reported in MARS include: grain size, mud, sand, gravel and carbonate contents, mineralogy, age determinations, geochemical properties, and bulk density, p-wave velocity, porosity, and magnetic susceptibility for cores. Images and graphics are also presented where available.
MARS currently holds >40,000 sample and sub-sample records, and approximately 200,000 records describing the characteristics of the samples. New data are continuously being added.