Mobile laboratories are important to the exploration geochemist because they offer rapid chemical analyses of geologic materials in the field. This permits modification of the sampling plan in response to significant findings, rather than following a planned sampling scheme and leaving any follow-up to a later time. The portable PORTASPEC X-ray spectrograph (Pitchford Scientific instruments Division of Hankison Corporation) Model 2501 was used on ferromanganese crusts during the L9-84-CP (R/V S.P. Lee) expedition by the United States Geological Survey. The composition in major elements was averaged over a collection of samples for each station.

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1989 NOAA-NCEI compiled the NOAA-MMS Marine Minerals Geochemical Database from journal articles, technical reports and unpublished sources from other institutions.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.This dataset represents the digitized Table 5, pp. C05-1 to C05-2 of Manheim, FT & Lane-Bostwick, CM (1989).