Total Sediment Thickness for the World's Oceans and Marginal Seas, Version 3 (NCEI Accession 0305030)

The Total Sediment Thickness database for the World's Oceans and Marginal Seas is a compilation of sediment-thickness data from previously published isopach maps, ocean drilling results from the Ocean Drilling Program (ODP) and the Deep Sea Drilling Project (DSDP), and variety of seismic data.

The global 5‐arc‐minute total sediment thickness grid, GlobSed, incorporates data and several regional oceanic sediment thickness maps for:

• NE Atlantic (Funck et al., 2017; Hopper et al., 2014)
• Mediterranean (Molinari & Morelli, 2011)
• Arctic (Petrov et al., 2016)
• Weddell Sea (Huang et al., 2014)
• Ross Sea, Amundsen Sea, and Bellingshausen Sea sectors off West Antarctica (Lindeque et al., 2016; Wobbe et al., 2014).

This version also includes updates in the White Sea region based on the Russian Geological Research Institute (VSEGEI) map of Orlov and Fedorov (2001). GlobSed covers a larger area than NCEI’s previous global grids (Divins, 2003; Whittaker et al. 2013), and the new updates results in a 29.7% increase in estimated total oceanic sediment volume.

NCEI decommissioned Total Sediment Thickness for the World's Oceans and Marginal Seas, Version 3 in June 2025 with no further updates. Comments and questions may be sent to: ncei.info@noaa.gov.