Site 530 is located in the southeastern corner of the Angola Basin, about 20 km north of the Walvis Escarpment, near the eastern end of the easternmost (or Frio) segment of the Walvis Ridge. It lies on the abyssal floor of the Angola Basin and exhibits a seismic stratigraphic sequence typical for the entire deep part of the basin. It was selected because it appears to have the oldest strata in the region preserved in a sediment pond between low basement rises.

From 1983 until 1989 NOAA-NCEI compiled the NOAA-MMS Marine Minerals Geochemical Database from journal articles, technical reports and unpublished sources from other institutions. At the time it was the most extended data compilation on ferromanganese deposits world wide. Initially published in a proprietary format incompatible with present day standards it was jointly decided by AWI and NOAA to transcribe this legacy data into PANGAEA. This transfer is augmented by a careful checking of the original sources when available and the encoding of ancillary information (sample description, method of analysis...) not present in the NOAA-MMS database.