The

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

National Geophysical Data Center (NGDC) provided scientific stewardship, products and services for geophysical

data In the pursuit of knowledge, data (; ) is a collection of discrete values that convey information, describing quantity, quality, fact, statistics, other basic units of meaning, or simply sequences of symbols that may be further interpret ...

describing the solid earth,

marine Marine is an adjective meaning of or pertaining to the sea or ocean. Marine or marines may refer to: Ocean * Maritime (disambiguation) * Marine art * Marine biology * Marine debris * Marine habitats * Marine life * Marine pollution Military ...

, and solar-terrestrial

environment Environment most often refers to: __NOTOC__ * Natural environment, all living and non-living things occurring naturally * Biophysical environment, the physical and biological factors along with their chemical interactions that affect an organism or ...

, as well as earth observations from

space Space is the boundless three-dimensional extent in which objects and events have relative position and direction. In classical physics, physical space is often conceived in three linear dimensions, although modern physicists usually consi ...

. In 2015, NGDC was merged with the National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) and the National Oceanographic Data Center (NODC) into the

National Centers for Environmental Information The National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI), an agency of the United States government, manages one of the world's largest archives of atmospheric, coastal, geophysical, and oceanic data, containing information that ranges from ...

(NCEI).

Location and controlling bodies

The NGDC, was located in

Boulder, Colorado Boulder is a home rule city that is the county seat and most populous municipality of Boulder County, Colorado, United States. The city population was 108,250 at the 2020 United States census, making it the 12th most populous city in Colora ...

as a part of the

US Department of Commerce The United States Department of Commerce is an executive department of the U.S. federal government concerned with creating the conditions for economic growth and opportunity. Among its tasks are gathering economic and demographic data for bus ...

(USDOC), National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), National Environmental Satellite, Data and Information Service (NESDIS).

Data holdings

NGDC's data holdings contained more than 300

digital Digital usually refers to something using discrete digits, often binary digits. Technology and computing Hardware *Digital electronics, electronic circuits which operate using digital signals ** Digital camera, which captures and stores digital ...

and analog

database In computing, a database is an organized collection of data stored and accessed electronically. Small databases can be stored on a file system, while large databases are hosted on computer clusters or cloud storage. The design of databases ...

s, some of which were very large. As technology advanced, so did the search for more efficient ways of preserving these data. This data is now maintained by the NCEI.

Data contributors

NGDC worked closely with contributors of scientific data to prepare documented, reliable data sets. They welcomed cooperative projects with other government agencies, nonprofit organizations, and universities, and encourage data exchange.

Data users

NGDC's data users included: * private industry * universities and other educational facilities * research organizations * federal, state, and local governments * foreign governments, industry, and academia * publishers and other mass media * the general public

Data management

The Data Center developed data management programs that reflect the changing world of

geophysics Geophysics () is a subject of natural science concerned with the physical processes and physical properties of the Earth and its surrounding space environment, and the use of quantitative methods for their analysis. The term ''geophysics'' so ...

. These programs are now part of the

References

{{Reflist National Geophysical Data Center