Data quality flags:
2 = Good data;
3 = Questionable data;
4 = Bad data.

Intercalibration:
See the Table 1 Supplement File (.PNG), which lists intercalibration data for reference waters, both our results and results we were able to find from collaborators. Results are reasonably comparable within the 2% precision generally given for Ba analysis. Note that European labs analyzing Ba tend to report values for one of the SLRS reference waters as well as an in house standard. We are hopeful that other data from the BATS crossover station will soon be available to make a better comparison.

BCO-DMO Processing:
- modified parameter names to conform to BCO-DMO and GEOTRACES IDP parameter naming conventions;
- separated Barium columns in _BOTTLE and _FISH, in accordance with the GEOTRACES IDP conventions;
- replaced blanks (missing data) with "nd" ("no data");
- correction made on 10 November 2016: removed duplicate data for sample number 9981;
- 04 March 2019: removed embargo on dataset.

Additional GEOTRACES Processing by BCO-DMO:
As was done for the GEOTRACES-NAT data, 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: cruise_id, EXPOCODE,SECT_ID, STNNBR, CASTNO, GEOTRC_EVENTNO, GEOTRC_SAMPNO, GEOTRC_INSTR, SAMPNO, GF_NO, BTLNBR, BTLNBR_FLAG_W, DATE_START_EVENT, TIME_START_EVENT, ISO_DATETIME_UTC_START_EVENT, EVENT_LAT, EVENT_LON, DEPTH_MIN, DEPTH_MAX, BTL_DATE, BTL_TIME, BTL_ISO_DATETIME_UTC, BTL_LAT, BTL_LON, ODF_CTDPRS, SMDEPTH, FMDEPTH, BTMDEPTH, CTDPRS, CTDDEPTH.

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 and ODF_Bottle datasets. Non-bottle parameters, including those from GeoFish tows, Aerosol sampling, and McLane Pumps, were taken from the TN303 Event Log (version 30 Oct 2014). Where applicable, pump information was taken from the PUMP_Nuts_Sals dataset.

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.