Tuna Research and Conservation Center

Geolocation Data

The primary Block Lab geolocation product, published in Block et al. (2011), is the xxxSSM.csv file.
The first line of each xxxSSM.csv file is a header in this format:
datesec,lon,lat,lon025,lat025,lon5,lat5,lon975,lat975,mplon,mplat,id

For each location fix, the SSM generates 20000 posterior location estimates.
There is one line in the file for each location fix. The fields are:

datesec -- the GMT time.
lon -- the mean of longitude estimates.
lat -- the mean of latitude estimates.
lon025 -- the 2.5% percentile of the longitude estimates.
lat025 -- the 2.5% percentile of the latitude estimates.
lon5 -- the median of the longitude estimates.
lat5 -- the median of the latitude estimates.
lon975 -- the 97.5% percentile of the longitude estimates.
lat975 -- the 97.5% percentile of the latitude estimates.
mplon -- the longitude of the 2D mode (point of highest kernel density)
mplat -- the latitude of the 2D mode (point of highest kernel density)
id -- the eventid of the deployment


Other geolocation files:
xxx_findlats.csv -- Block lab method published in Teo et al. (2004) for light level and sea surface temperature geolocation.

xxx-GPE3.csv -- Wildlife Computers' GPE3 process uses a proprietary State-space model to produce an animal location track. It is not specific or limited to Block Lab data. See wildlifecomputers.com for more detailed information.