• Economic and Environmental Geology
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• v.44 no.6
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• pp.475-483
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• 2011

Quantitative estimate of manganese nodules based on the operation of a free fall grab (FFG) needs to be corrected because of its less retrieval ability. Previously, the correction parameter of the nodule abundance collected by FFG was calculated based on the image analysis of the photos of bottom sediment in the northern sector of the nodule exploration area of Korea in the NE equatorial Pacific. However, nodules in the southern sector are commonly covered by sediment, which may prevent the use of the correction parameter estimated by photographic techniques. In this study, we attempted dual nodule sampling at the same location by different equipments (i.e. box corer (BC) and FFG) to examine the previous correction parameter of nodule abundance for FFG operation. During the exploration cruises in 2007 to 2009, Mn-nodules were collected from 40 stations both by BC and FFG in the southern sector. The correlation analysis between BC and FFG operations revealed that the BC collected nodules 1.43 times larger than FFG. Our result suggests that the correction parameter of 1.43 can be applied for collection of FFG data to estimate Mn-nodule distribution in the southern sector. The obtained parameter is similar to the previous parameter (1.42~1.45) calculated by the image analysis method, indicating an usefulness of new correction parameter suggested by this study.