Proposed process for coordinating USGS data management to support ocean planning

Diagram illustrating the proposed process for coordinating USGS data management to support ocean planning. "Actors" in the process (stick figures) are the humans, organizations, and computers responsible for specific actions (ovals). Arrows indicate the general flow of events, beginning with communication of the data needs of external ocean-planning groups and ending with registration of relevant USGS data and associated metadata ("data about data") with the Data.gov ocean community . The envisioned process can be applied to support other national initiatives in addition to ocean planning.