Hydrocarbon concentration, gas chromatography-mass spectrometry characterization, mass-to-charge ratio and monoisotopic intensity, short-lived radioisotope, benthic infauna, sediment texture and composition data collected aboard R/V Justo Sierra cruise JS-0815 in the southern Gulf of Mexico from 2015-07-31 to 2015-08-08 (NCEI Accession 0226973)

This dataset contains the concentration of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAHs) and biomarkers (hopanes, steranes, alkanes) in marine sediment cores using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS), mass-to-charge ratio (m/z) and monoisotopic intensity data using a Fourier transform ion cyclotron mass spectrometry (FTICR-MS), sediment texture and composition data, short-lived radioisotope (SLRad) data, and species-level benthic foraminiferal assemblages identified from sediment cores collected aboard R/V Justo Sierra cruise JS-0815 in the southern Gulf of Mexico between 2015-07-31 and 2015-08-08. Marine sediment core samples were collected with multiple corers and were sectioned at specific intervals, and freeze-dried. Hydrocarbons were extracted from freeze-dried samples using a dichloromethane/methanol (9:1) mixture of solvents and extracts were analyzed using an Agilent 7890B GC/MS instrument attached to a 5977A mass detector. Benthic infauna data includes average meiofauna and macrofauna taxa abundance per replicate-section; calculations for infauna abundance, diversity, richness and evenness; and the total concentration of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAHs) for the core sections. SLRad data and sediment texture and composition data were generated for selected core sub-samples at 2mm sampling intervals for “surficial unit” and 5mm sampling resolution intervals to the base of cores. All data includes the location, date and depth of the sample collection sites.