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The Minerals Management Service (MMS) of the U. S. Department of the Interior awarded the contract for the "Deepwater Program: Understanding the Processes that Maintain the Oxygen Levels in the Deep Gulf of Mexico" to the Texas A&M Research Foundation in July 2002. Scientists at Texas A&M University (TAMU) conducted the research. The study area was the deepwater Gulf of Mexico, defined as that part of the Gulf with water depths of 400 m or more. Vertically the study area extended from sea surface to sea floor. Study results will assist MMS in its management of the nation's Outer Continental Shelf Leasing Program, including oil and gas leasing in federal waters of the northern Gulf of Mexico.

Don DiMarco has a very good life – a family he loves, a comfortable lifestyle, passions and interests that keep him amused. He also thought he had time, but that turned out not to be the case. Faced with news that might have immediately felled most, Don now wonders if he has time enough. Time enough to show his wife the romance he didn’t always lavish on her. Time enough to live out his most ambitious fantasies. Time enough to close the circle on some of his most aching unresolved relationships. Summoning an inner strength he barely realized he possessed, Don sets off to prove that twelve months is time enough to live a life in full. A glorious celebration of each and every moment that we’re given here on Earth, as well as the eternal bonds that we all share, TWELVE MONTHS is a stirring testament to the power of the human spirit.

"This report covers the data collected as part of the LATEX A moored current meter task (Task A-1). Other data reports cover the other four LATEX A field components (Howard, 1997, for drifters; Jochens et al., 1997, for hydrography; Bender and Kelly, 1996, for ADCP; and Wang et al., 1996, for meteorology). The measurements of surface waves, which are part of the moored current meter task, are presented in DiMarco et al. (1995), DiMarco and Kelly (1995), and DiMarco (1996) and are not discussed in this report. All data have been submitted to the National Oceanographic Data Center (NODC); the LATEX A project number with NODC is 0212"--Introduction.

"Our principal goal in this report is to describe the availability, processing, and quality of data collected by the drifting buoys and several miscellaneous instruments not included in any other LATEX A Data Report. These instruments include: expendable bathythermographs, expendable sound velocity profilers, expendable current profilers, thermosalinograph, and CTD data collected during the current meter mooring maintenance cruises"--Introduction.

"The LATEX A Data Office had the task of quality assurance/quality control (QA/QC) for all moored current meter and meteorological data collected during the Texas-Louisiana Shelf Circulation and Transport Processes Study of the Louisiana-Texas Shelf Physical Oceanography Program (LATEX). LATEX was funded by the U.S. Minerals Management Service under OCS contract No. 14-35-0001-30509 (Jochens and Nowlin, 1994). Our principal goal in this report is to describe the availability and quality of data collected by the five Coastal Leasing, Inc. (CLI) MiniSpec Directional Wave Gauges (MiniSpecs) maintained at the LATEX study's shallowest mooring locations. The MiniSpec Data Report is divided into two volumes. Volume One discusses MiniSpec data collected from the beginning of the LATEX field study in April 1992 through August 1993. Kelly et al. (1993) documented the calibration and performance of the MiniSpecs during their first year of deployment. Volume One of the MiniSpec Data Report, therefore, supplements that report by providing additional information on data availability and quality during the first field year of LATEX. Volume Two focuses on MiniSpec data collected from September 1993 to the end of the LATEX field program in December 1994. During the summer of 1993, all five Mini-Spec instruments were removed from the field for extensive testing and calibration of their pressure sensors. The resulting pressure calibration was applied to all MiniSpec pressure data discussed in Volume Two"--Introduction.

"This report describes the data availability of the SeaData 635-8 wave gauge deployed by the Texas-Louisiana Shelf Circulation and Transport Processes Study of the Louisiana-Texas Shelf Physical Oceanography Program (LATEX). LATEX was funded by the U.S. Minerals Management Service under OCS contract No. 14-35-0001-30509 (Jochens and Nowlin, 1994). This report follows the same format as the LATEX-A Data Report: MiniSpec Directional Wave Gauges (DiMarco et al. 1995a). The two volume MiniSpec Data Report discusses MiniSpec data collected from the beginning of the LATEX field study in April 1992 through December 1994. Kelly et al. (1993) document the calibration and performance of the MiniSpecs during their first year of deployment. This report focuses on the data recorded by the SeaData 635-8 wave gauge. The SeaData wave gauge was deployed six times during the LATEX field program at 3 different locations and recorded bottom pressure only. The observed SeaData pressure records are suitable for estimating wave statistics. One difference between the LATEX Mini- Specs and SeaData data is that the MiniSpecs also recorded current information to provide estimates of the directional wave spectrum. Because the SeaData recorded only bottom pressure, only the non-directional wave spectrum could be estimated. The SeaData instrument also only operated in burst mode and, therefore, did not yield half-hourly seasurface height estimates. Sea surface height may be estimated, however, by averaging the SeaData pressure time series. The availability of sea surface height estimated by the Sea- Data is addressed in the LATEX-A Data Report: Current Meters (DiMarco et al. 1997). In addition to data availability, this report also documents the calculation of wave statistics, such as significant wave height and peak spectral period, which were not provided in the original National Oceanographic Data Center (NODC) distributions submitted to the NODC by the LATEX program. Three data sets per instrument deployment exist for the SeaData wave gauge: the original raw pressure time series, time series of basic wave statistics, and time series of sea surface height. It is clear, however, that the general analyses presented in this report can provide important information and serve as pointers for future, more specific, analyses"--Introduction.