A data-base software system has been developed for the management of geochemical data collected by the U.S. Geological Survey and cooperating agencies in North Dakota. This report describes the purpose, use, and design of the North Dakota geochemical data-base software system.
The software provides capabilities to input, update, and retrieve geochemical data. Data can be input to the data base either interactively or by loading in a file of specially formatted data records. Stored data can be viewed and updated interactively.
Data can be retrieved and output in the form of a table, or the data can be output to a file in a format suitable for input to other software packages. Access to the data can be restricted on a station-by-station basis to protect preliminary or proprietary data from unauthorized use.
The geochemical data-base software is designed as a single-user system. Only one user can update the data base at a time. However, if no user is updating the data base, multiple users can use the retrieval routines to retrieve and output data from the data base. The software is written in Fortran 77, but uses a number of systemdependent subroutines. Data are stored in a group of direct-access files.
