The basic data have been validated by the scientific laboratories, then at the archiving centers, they have been formatted at a common unique format MEDATLAS and submitted to final quality checks, in conformity with the IOC, ICES and MAST international standards for data banking.

Accordingly each data set of vertical profiles and time series is submitted to a list of automatic checks first. As a result, a quality flag is added to each numerical values.
Then the data points are displayed on a screen with a color assigned to each data point that corresponds to its quality flag. These quality flags are then validated or corrected manually taking into account the overall consistency of the data and the remarks of the data originator

The quality checks are performed following 3 steps :

VISUAL CHECKS	AUTOMATIC CHECKS
QC0:	QC 0 : Check of the format and completeness of information
QC1:	QC 1 : Check of the cruise and stations headers duplicate ship velocity location of the station / shoreline bottom sounding date of the stations
QC2: 1) Vertical Profiles 2) Time Series	QC 2 : Check of the observations the following problems are detected : constant profiles or times series (sensor stuck) impossible regional values decreasing reference parameter (pressure or time) spikes vertical instability (for vertical profiles) The vertical profile data are compared with pre-existing statistics (LEVITUS, MODB, MEDATLAS)  The time series are compared with the internal statistics (mean and standard deviation of the series itself)

The protocol for data management is available in the MATER DATA MANUALS:

	Vol1: Data Management Structure, Inventories, Format and Codes, Quality Assurance
	Vol2: Data Dictionary