We present the first digital seafloor geomorphic features map (GSFM) of the global ocean. The GSFM includes 131,192 separate polygons in 29 geomorphic feature categories, used here to assess differences between passive and active continental margins as well as between 8 major ocean regions (the Arctic, Indian, North Atlantic, North Pacific, South Atlantic, South Pacific and the Southern Oceans and the Mediterranean and Black Seas). The GSFM provides quantitative assessments of differences between passive and active margins: continental shelf width of passive margins (88 km) is nearly three times that of active margins (31 km); the average width of active slopes (36 km) is less than the average width of passive margin slopes (46 km); active margin slopes contain an area of 3.4 million km2 where the gradient exceeds 5°, compared with 1.3 million km2 on passive margin slopes; the continental rise covers 27 million km2 adjacent to passive margins and less than 2.3 million km2 adjacent to active margins. Examples of specific applications of the GSFM are presented to show that: 1) larger rift valley segments are generally associated with slow-spreading rates and smaller rift valley segments are associated with fast spreading; 2) polar submarine canyons are twice the average size of non-polar canyons and abyssal polar regions exhibit lower seafloor roughness than non-polar regions, expressed as spatially extensive fan, rise and abyssal plain sediment deposits – all of which are attributed here to the effects of continental glaciations; and 3) recognition of seamounts as a separate category of feature from ridges results in a lower estimate of seamount number compared with estimates of previous workers. Reference: Harris PT, Macmillan-Lawler M, Rupp J, Baker EK Geomorphology of the oceans. Marine Geology.

Norwegian Download service for INSPIRE Sea Regions.

Study on meiobenthos and nematode communities (counts, density, biomass, genus composition) collected in the Arctic Ocean in August and September 1991. The data were digitized by VLIZ from the original report: Jivaluk, J. (1993). Comparative study of the meiobenthos in the Arctic region. MSc Thesis. RUG: Gent. 135 pp. The meiofauna and nematode communities have been studied in multiple corer samples collected from seven stations in the Arctic Ocean (the Lomonosov Ridge, the Amundsen Basin and the Morris Jesup Rise). Samples were taken at depths ranging between 1072-4273 m using different mesh sizes. Most of the animals are found in the uppermost centimeter of the sediment and their densities decrease with increasing depth into the sediment. The nematode communities are dominated by species of the families Monhysteridae, Linhomoeidae, Chromadoridae and Leptolaimidae. Monhystera has the highest density followed by Metalinhomoeus, Leptolaimus and Acantholaimus. Most of the nematodes which are retained on the 125 and 250 µm mesh are adults. At the smaller mesh (32 and 63 µm) the number of adult increases with increasing water depth.

HERMES data in PANGAEA only include meiobenthos abundances at the Arctic Håkon Mosby Mud Volcano (1037 records) and meiobenthos abundances in the Black Sea during Poseidon cruise. HERMES is a multidisciplinary research programme investigating Europe's deep marine ecosystems and their environment. Study sites extend from the Arctic to the Black Sea and include biodiversity hotspots such as cold seeps, cold-water coral mounds and reefs, canyons and anoxic environments, and communities found on open slopes.

Happywhale.com is a resource to help you know whales as individuals, and to benefit conservation science with rich data about individual whales. Original provider: Happywhale Dataset credits: Happywhale and contributors Supplemental information: Sightings and images were submitted to Happywhale by contributors. A portion of the Happywhale data were transferred to OBIS-SEAMAP upon the agreement between Happywhale and OBIS-SEAMAP. There may be duplicate records among Happywhale datasets and other OBIS-SEAMAP datasets. The precision of date/time vary per record. Some records have date accuracy up to year only. This dataset includes sightings and photos from the following 2 contributors in alphabetic order: Marilia Olio; Per Nikolaj Bukh

Happywhale.com is a resource to help you know whales as individuals, and to benefit conservation science with rich data about individual whales. Original provider: Happywhale Dataset credits: Happywhale and contributorsSupplemental information: Sightings and images were submitted to Happywhale by contributors. A portion of the Happywhale data were transferred to OBIS-SEAMAP upon the agreement between Happywhale and OBIS-SEAMAP. There may be duplicate records among Happywhale datasets and other OBIS-SEAMAP datasets. The precision of date/time vary per record. Some records have date accuracy up to year only. This dataset includes sightings and photos from the following 1 contributors in alphabetic order: Marilia Olio

Long-term monitoring programs on benthic fauna are missing for large areas of the Arctic. In areas where repeated monitoring has occurred, it is difficult to compare data due to different sampling approaches and different targets of monitoring efforts. There is a need for an international standardization of long- term benthic monitoring. The CBMP Benthos Expert Network has identified potential ways to improve benthic monitoring coverage, and has come up with a map showing a Pan Arctic station map.

Happywhale.com is a resource to help you know whales as individuals, and to benefit conservation science with rich data about individual whales. Original provider: Happywhale Dataset credits: Happywhale and contributors Supplemental information: Sightings and images were submitted to Happywhale by contributors. A portion of the Happywhale data were transferred to OBIS-SEAMAP upon the agreement between Happywhale and OBIS-SEAMAP. There may be duplicate records among Happywhale datasets and other OBIS-SEAMAP datasets. The precision of date/time vary per record. Some records have date accuracy up to year only. This dataset includes sightings and photos from the following 9 contributors in alphabetic order: Anna Astafurova; Conor Ryan; Johnny Giese; Kerstin Langenberger; Léa Zinsli; Marian Herz; Mick Peerdeman; Rémi Bigonneau; Victoria Stokes

This datasets contributes to a better understanding of diversity in small peracarid crustacean and their possible distribution patterns in remote deep-sea regions. It contains specimen ocurrence records of the taxon Cumacea sampled with diverse benthic gears (epibenthic sledges, box corer) on the Yermak Plateau north of Svalbard during the PASCAL project with RV Polarstern in 2017 and during the IceAGE expedition IceAGE1 in 2011 in deep sea regions of the Nordic GIN-Seas (Greenland, Iceland and Norwegian Sea). The specimens investigated on morphological and molecular basis in this study were sampled in the course of different projects: The IceAGE program (Icelandic marine Animals: Genetics and Ecology, Brix et al. 2014a) is an ongoing research project (IceAGE 2 in 2013, IceAGE-RR in 2018, IceAGE 3 in 2020) which was established as a follow up of the very successful BIOFAR (Biology of the Faroe Islands, Nørrevang et al. 1994; Gerken and Watling 1999) and BIOICE (Benthic Invertebrates of Icelandic waters, Omarsdottir et al. 2013) projects. It is aimed to develop into a long-term study to get an overview of the biodiversity in this extremely diverse region around Iceland with a variety of different habitats and environmental challenges in its adjacent waters. Based on genetic and morphological diversity, it aims to create an inventory of the fauna as elementary knowledge for a comprehensive understanding of possible responses to changing climate conditions in marine environments (Brix et al. 2014a). The focus of the expedition PS106/1 (ARK-XXXI/1.1, 24th of May – 21st of June, 2017) off northern Svalbard onboard the RV Polarstern in course of PASCAL (Physical feedbacks of Arctic PBL, Sea ice, Cloud and Aerosol) was an interdisciplinary approach for studying the interaction of different Arctic feedback mechanisms based on atmospheric, oceanographic, physical and biological studies (Macke and Flores 2018). In this context the vessel was attached to an ice floe during a two-week passive drifting according to the ocean’s current as a preliminary trial-expedition to the first year-round MOSAiC (Multidisciplinary drifting Observatory for the Study of Arctic Climate) expedition (Sep/2019 – Sep/2020).

Samples of the macrobenthic fauna of soft sediments were collected from around Svalbard during the 1991 Arctic EPOS cruise of RVPolarstern Although faunal variability could be related to sediment granulometry and depth, all stations to the south and east of the Archipelago lay within the broadly defined central Barents Sea community. In this community, (alfa-diversity was variable and sampled between 77 and 337 m showed no clear relationship to depth. Diversity in the area close to the polar front was notably high, rarefaction predicting that 43 ± 5.5 species might occur in a sample of 201 individuals. k-Dominance plots suggested that muddy sand communities around Sval- bard were no less diverse than similar assemblages in the North Sea.