The Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES) and the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), under the aegis of National Centre for Antarctic and Ocean Research (NCAOR), has initiated a national mission on ‘External Continental Shelf’ along with National Hydrographic Office (NHO), National Institute of Oceanography (NIO), National Geophysical Research Institute (NGRI), Geological Survey of India (GSI), Directorate General of Hydrocarbons (DGH) and Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC), in 2001. Over 40 scientists from these premier geoscientific institutions of the country had been engaged in one of the most challenging and multifaceted tasks ever undertaken by India in the offshore realm, for defining and determining the outer limits of the country’s continental shelf beyond 200 nautical miles from its coastal baselines.

In one of the largest ever marine geophysical surveys carried out by India, over 31,000 line km of multichannel seismic reflection, gravity and magnetic data together with bathymetric information were acquired from 42 pre-determined profiles in a round-the-clock operation between July 2002 and February 2004. In addition, 100 Ocean Bottom Seismometers (OBS) were deployed for the first time by the country, with a significant retrieval rate of 92% and high quality wide angle seismic reflection and refraction data were obtained at critical locations. The final output comprised over 7TB of data in every conceivable media ranging from hardcopy printouts to tapes, CDs, eaxbytes and VCDs.

On 11th of May, 2009, India filed to the CLCS, her first partial submission under the provisions of Article 76 for a continental shelf extending beyond 200 nautical miles (M) from the Indian baselines. A second partial submission for another part of the extended shelf under the provisions of the Statement of Understanding has also been finalised and provided to the MEA for filing before the CLCS.

Considering the immense volume of scientific data collected and its intrinsic value, the Ministry initiated action for developing state-of-the-art archival and retrieval facilities of the geoscientific data in a structured database at NCAOR. Following all due procedural formalities, M/s TCS was identified as the Service Partner in this multi-institutional endeavor. The first phase of the Data Centre was formally commissioned on the 11th December 2009 by Dr. Shailesh Nayak, Secretary, MoES.

The commissioned Data Centre allows for a web-based geospatial database of the marine geophysical and bathymetric information pertaining to the Indian continental shelf. The system architecture consists of: Data archival in a Network-attached Storage (NAS); Facilities for data retrieval, comprising Meta DB and a GIS DB and Facilities for data processing.

The system architecture is also capable of supporting such geophysical and geospatial software as ProMAX, Geographic Modeling Application R 2007 V9.5, GM-SYS(Geosoft) , Generic Mapping Tools 4, Arc GIS 9.2 , GeoCap and CARIS Lots.

The metadata functionality of the database describes the primary details in terms of when and how the data was collected, the nature of data, how the data was processed, necessary supporting information that went in to the processing, etc. The database also facilitates customized GIS-based interface for easy retrieval of data from a NAS, queries based on different scientific inputs, and web based input/output interface to facilitate the application to run on internet/intranet with login authentication. In addition, the search queries provide for advanced options such as data acquisition and processing protocols, and also basic information about the various types of marine geophysical surveys carried out. Links to most of the major marine geophysical data Centres of the world expand the utility of this datacenter by providing a window to the oceanic realm beyond the seas surrounding the Indian sub-continent. The database format is also flexible enough to allow for both vertical and lateral growth.

Three kinds of marine geophysical data are housed at this Data Centre:

·Those of a classified nature, collected exclusively for the delineation of the outer limits of the Indian continental shelf.

·Those of a proprietary nature, provided by other institutions;

·Public-domain data

The system architecture is also being configured for archival, storage and retrieval of multibeam bathymetric data being collected by NCAOR as a part of the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) mapping project as well as various oceanographic data being collected during the scientific expeditions to the Southern Ocean realm.