Manganese nodules were retrieved during the SO06 (R/V Sonne) and COPANO (R/V Le Suroit) campaigns as part of the international "Hawaii-Tahiti Transect Program" initiated at the CCOP/SOPAC-IOC/IDOE International workshop on "Geology Mineral Resources and Geophysics of the South Pacific" in Suva, Fiji im September 1975. Their chemical composition was determined using X-ray fluorescence (XRF).

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1989 NOAA-NCEI compiled the NOAA-MMS Marine Minerals Geochemical Database from journal articles, technical reports and unpublished sources from other institutions.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.