This report is Volume 1 in the series of reports entitled "Descriptions of W.H.O.I. rock dredge samples". This series represents a major effort to catalog and prepare initial descriptions for all rock dredge samples in the W.H.O.I. Sea Floor Samples Collection, and to distribute this information throughout the scientific community. Volume 1 contains sample descriptions from approximately 382 dredging stations executed during the period 1960 through 1977. It also represents a digitized listing of all dredge station data for the entire W.H.O.I. Dredge Collection through 1980. This data is sorted by Marsden Square and can serve as a regional index for all rock descriptions included in Volumes 1-3.

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1989 NOAA-NCEI compiled the NOAA-MMS Marine Minerals Geochemical Database from journal articles, technical reports and unpublished sources from other institutions.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