Abyssal Claims: A FAIR-aligned integration platform for deep-sea and terrestrial mining transparency

Abyssal Claims is an independently developed, non-commercial web platform (https: //something-rare. com) that integrates more than forty publicly funded and open-licensed geospatial datasets onto a single interactive three-dimensional globe. It is designed to make the environmental and governance context of deep-sea mineral extraction and terrestrial industrial mining legible to researchers, journalists, policy analysts and the general public. Version 1. 3 (7 May 2026) — production baseline. The platform transitions from active feature development into a production / steady-state operating mode. v1. 3 adds: - One further sea-domain layer: Contractor Sampling Stations (deepdata-stations), a Tier 2 platform-derived rollup of 140 ISA contractor Darwin Core archives mirrored via OBIS, surfacing 2, 418 sampling stations colour-coded by sponsor state. The frontend convention is that every Tier 2 click panel begins with an orange WarningBanner alerting the user that the analysis is platform-derived rather than the contractor's own; the underlying Tier 1 raw occurrence table is never modified by Tier 2. - Three further data sources to the Baseline Monitoring Density input set: ISA DeepData Tier 1 raw occurrences (201, 323), MBARI VARS deep-sea ROV observations (175, 476), and the NOAA Deep-Sea Coral and Sponge Research and Technology Program database (DSCRTP, 1, 508, 706 global coral and sponge records, mostly >200 m). The grid now aggregates 15 ocean-observation source families against 12 in v1. 2. The platform deliberately surfaces these three sources separately for institutional naming credit and provenance transparency, even though their records also appear in the broader OBIS hotspot grid input through routine contributor uploads — this overlap is intentional and does not represent a flaw in the count, because the input set is a claim of coverage breadth across the named institutions, not a claim of disjoint coverage. - New methods paper section 4. 4b documenting the Tier 1 / Tier 2 separation rule for ISA DeepData ingest, and new section 9 documenting the production status and roadmap. The biodiversityₕotspots table comprises 34, 067, 381 records as of v1. 3. As of v1. 3 no further sea or land layers are planned. Version 1. 2 (5 May 2026) introduced the OBIS Open Data parquet ingest path (DuckDB batch-download from s3: //obis-open-data/occurrence/, ~6, 880 GeoParquet files, snapshot 25 March 2025, DOI 10. 25607/obis. occurrence. b89117cd, with a curated deep-sea species list of ~14, 000 taxa and a 50 m depth floor), retired the standalone GBIF Species (Deep) layer (GBIF still queried as IUCN enrichment service), disabled the Dark Vessels (SAR×AIS) and Live Vessels (AIS) layers (services stopped, historical tables retained read-only), added the Scripps Benthic Invertebrate Collection (SIO-BIC, ~83, 000 specimen records, made available by the Scripps Institution of Oceanography) to the Baseline Monitoring Density input set, and introduced section 4. 0 Data transformations making explicit the platform's CRS normalisation, schema harmonisation, JSONB preservation pattern, and the principle that the platform transforms format but not content. Version 1. 1 (28 April 2026) added the Offshore Activities layer (6, 694 polygons across 23 government registries: BOEM, EMODnet, NSTA, Sodir, ANP, NOPTA, CNH, GEUS, Crown Estate UK and Scotland, NRCan/CNSOPB, C-NLOPB, ESDM, PASA, MRA, MME, SBMA, MEEI/IMA, GNPC, PMP, IPAS, ANH, PERUPETRO, NZP&M) and six ocean-observation source ingests (WOD, PANGAEA, BCO-DMO, NOAA datasets, OBIS-SEAMAP, CCHDO) feeding the Baseline Monitoring Density product. This deposit documents the platform at a level sufficient to verify its outputs and reimplement equivalent functionality. It contains: - Methods paper (PDF, 31 pages): data sources, system architecture, sections 4. 0 / 4. 0a on data transformations and the OBIS DuckDB batch-download ingest, the new section 4. 4b on the ISA DeepData Tier 1 / Tier 2 separation rule, ingestion strategies, MVT tile generation, overlap view refresh, baseline monitoring density grid (now aggregating 15 sources), the historical record of the now-disabled SAR×AIS dark-vessel detection, search-engine discoverability, limitations, FAIR alignment, the new section 9 on production status and roadmap, full references. - Data sources inventory (Excel, 6 sheets): complete per-layer catalogue of 21 active sea layers (plus deprecated/disabled rows preserved with status flags), 13 land layers, 25 derived products and ocean observation registries (including SIO-BIC, ISA DeepData Tier 1, MBARI VARS, NOAA DSCRTP), refresh schedule, licence summary. - Architecture diagram (SVG and PNG). - README (PDF): deposit overview and v1. 3 changelog. - CITATION. cff: machine-readable citation metadata. The source code of the platform is not part of this deposit by design. The pipeline is documented at an algorithmic level consistent with established scientific publication practice for research software. Author: Michal Mazurowski (Independent Researcher, ORCID 0009-0007-3786-0310).