The GEORSTOM III CENTRE expedition on the R/V Noroit surveyed the Coral Sea around the New Hebrides Islands and the Erromango Plateau from 17 until 26 October 1975. This report offers a description of the dredging sites, the macroscopic and microscopic determinations of samples, the chemical analyzes of rocks, the electron microprobe and micropaleontological determinations, the photographic plates and the preliminary conclusions.

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1989 NOAA-NCEI compiled the NOAA-MMS Marine Minerals Geochemical Database from journal articles, technical reports and unpublished sources from other institutions.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