Quality flag: Assignment of quality flag is based on analytical and methodological considerations in conjunction with examination of profiles and replicate analyses. Scheme is based on WOCE bottle flags: good (2), questionable (3), bad (4), not reported (5), and sample not drawn from this bottle (9).

Reporting units are pico- or nano-moles per kg-seawater. Missing data were identified by 'nd'.

Precision: Ga = 6.5% at 30 pmol/kg; Ba = 3% at 37 nmol/kg
Limit of detection: Ga = 2 pmol/kg; Ba = 0.7 nmol/kg

BCO-DMO made the following modifications:
- values of '-999' were replaced with 'nd'.
- blanks (missing data) were replaced with 'nd'.
- parameter names were modified to conform with BCO-DMO and GEOTRACES naming conventions.

STATUS NOTE: These data were significantly updated on 30 August 2016. A volume correction had not been applied to the previous version, and thus all of the original values needed to be multiplied by 0.9805. This correction has been applied in the 30 August version, now available online. There were also some samples that were re-analyzed for Ba with the values revised accordingly. Additionally, the PIs withdrew the Pb data (in the original version) because higher quality Pb data are already available from these cruises.

Additional GEOTRACES Processing:
After the data were submitted to the International Data Management Office, BODC, the office noticed that important identifying information was missing in many datasets. With the agreement of BODC and the US GEOTRACES lead PIs, BCO-DMO added standard US GEOTRACES information, such as the US GEOTRACES event number, to each submitted dataset lacking this information. To accomplish this, BCO-DMO compiled a 'master' dataset composed of the following parameters: station_GEOTRC, cast_GEOTRC (bottle and pump data only), event_GEOTRC, sample_GEOTRC, sample_bottle_GEOTRC (bottle data only), bottle_GEOTRC (bottle data only), depth_GEOTRC_CTD (bottle data only), depth_GEOTRC_CTD_rounded (bottle data only), BTL_ISO_DateTime_UTC (bottle data only), and GeoFish_id (GeoFish data only). This added information will facilitate subsequent analysis and inter comparison of the datasets.

Bottle parameters in the master file were taken from the GT-C_Bottle_GT10, GT-C_Bottle_GT11, ODF_Bottle_GT10, and ODF_Bottle_GT11 datasets. Non-bottle parameters, including those from GeoFish tows, Aerosol sampling, and McLane Pumps, were taken from the Event_Log_GT10 and Event_Log_GT11 datasets. McLane pump cast numbers missing in event logs were taken from the Particulate Th-234 dataset submitted by Ken Buesseler.

A standardized BCO-DMO method (called "join") was then used to merge the missing parameters to each US GEOTRACES dataset, most often by matching on sample_GEOTRC or on some unique combination of other parameters.

If the master parameters were included in the original data file and the values did not differ from the master file, the original data columns were retained and the names of the parameters were changed from the PI-submitted names to the standardized master names. If there were differences between the PI-supplied parameter values and those in the master file, both columns were retained. If the original data submission included all of the master parameters, no additional columns were added, but parameter names were modified to match the naming conventions of the master file.

See the dataset parameters documentation for a description of which parameters were supplied by the PI and which were added via the join method.