NTR:"particulate matter"

[pbuttigieg]

User request for"particulate matter". No definition proposed. Assuming this refers to particulate matter suspended in the water column.

PATO:granular is relevant here, but a new class for "particulate" (as a quality) may be preferred for logical definitions.

Also "particulate" (as a material entity) can be created after Wiktionary:

Any solid or liquid in a subdivided state, especially one that exhibits special characteristics which are negligible in the bulk material

With a logical def like `'environmental material' and 'has quality' some PATO:particulate'. Of course, the definition above needs to be more specific.

Wikipedia's description of atmospheric particulates looks adaptable to the class in general. 'located in' or similar (ideally a 'suspended in' relation would be used) can be used to link particulate matter with the material it is suspended in.

[pbuttigieg]

This issue is related to #251, as the original request refers to particles primarily composed of plankton

[stephanepesant]

The wording I was planning to use to describe the "Environment
(Material)" of some samples was "particulate matter (ENVO:xxxxxxxx),
including plankton (ENVO:xxxxxxxx)"

This material corresponds to the content of a net haul that collects
only "particulate matter, including plankton"... in contrast to a Niskin
bottle that collects "sea water (ENVO:00002149)", which includes of
course particulate matter and plankton... but that is rather implicit
and does not necessarily needs to be mentioned... although we could, but
then there's a whole lot of things that we would start listing...

perhaps you would prefer to have a single environmental material
"particulate matter, including plankton (ENVO:xxxxxxxx)" which could
point to "particulate", "matter" and "plankton" in other ontologies...
that would probably be best!

[pbuttigieg]

The wording I was planning to use to describe the "Environment
(Material)" of some samples was "particulate matter (ENVO:xxxxxxxx),
including plankton (ENVO:xxxxxxxx)"

I'd go for: "environmental material primarily composed of particulate matter and planktonic material".
The definition of particulate matter ENVO uses is based on composition, rather than protocol (the latter would lead to strange logic). Thus, the "and" is more useful than "including".

Be sure to use a feature class to indicate that the matter came from the marine water column.

perhaps you would prefer to have a single environmental material
"particulate matter, including plankton (ENVO:xxxxxxxx)" which could
point to "particulate", "matter" and "plankton" in other ontologies...
that would probably be best!

Typically, we would not do this - a domain ontology would provide the classes that you could use to build such a specific class. We should discuss such an application ontology for PANGAEA - it will allow you to use ENVO classes to build very specific annotations.

[pbuttigieg]

I've added particulate matter and waterborne particulate matter, however. The latter should be useful in this case.

[stephanepesant]

"environmental material primarily composed of particulate matter and
planktonic material" works for me.

[stephanepesant]

or we combine it with the environmental package "sea water
(ENVO:00002149)" or the environmental feature "surface water layer
(ENVO:00002042)" for example.

For Tara Oceans, we document the environmental feature, package and
material... so I do not see the necessity to have "waterborne" in the
term... but I do not oppose to it.