Cores retrieved in the Indian Ocean by R/V Marion Dufresne have been selected in conjunction with manganese nodules dredged in their vicinity. A sample was taken for each ore intis top part (0-2 cm). After being cleaned in a permangante solution eight granulometric fractions were separated (>35, 35-20, 20-5, 5-2, 2-1, 1-0.5, 0.5-0.2 and <0.2 µm) using sieving followed by decantation and centrifugation. Rare earth elements (REE) composition was determined by neutron activation analysis.
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1989 NOAA-NCEI compiled the NOAA-MMS Marine Minerals Geochemical Database from journal articles, technical reports and unpublished sources from other institutions.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 2, pp. 262 of the related publication.