I am working on transforming FGDC XML metadata records to the USGIN 1.1 version of ISO 19139 metadata and having a hard time finding formal FGDC schema, name spaces, and schema locations. This is what I found so far:

• There is no FGDC name space
• FGDC appears to only offer older XML Schema Documents (fgdc-std-001-1998-ann) and Document Type Decleration (DTD) on this page http://www.fgdc.gov/dataandservices/metadata
  
  •  There is no official schema location - only a download http://www.csc.noaa.gov/metadata/xml/fgdc-std-001-1998-ann.zip
• NOAA appears to have invested quite some time in a FGDC Remote Sensing Extension schema (http://fgdcxml.sourceforge.net/schema/index.html)
  
  • They have both a fgdc-std-001-1998 and a fgdc-std-012-2002 schema for download at http://sourceforge.net/projects/fgdcxml/files/fgdc%20schemas/
  • Their official schema location for the  is http://fgdcxml.sourceforge.net/schema/fgdc-std-012-2002/fgdc-std-012-2002.xsd

A fgdc-std-012-2002 schema valid FGDC XML would have the following mandatory elements. Note the mandatory <datasetid> element - how exciting!

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<metadata 
	xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" 
	xsi:noNamespaceSchemaLocation="http://fgdcxml.sourceforge.net/schema/fgdc-std-012-2002/fgdc-std-012-2002.xsd">
	<idinfo>
		<datsetid/>
		<citation>
			<citeinfo>
				<origin/>
				<pubdate/>
				<title/>
			</citeinfo>
		</citation>
		<descript>
			<abstract/>
			<purpose/>
		</descript>
		<timeperd>
			<timeinfo>
				<sngdate>
					<caldate/>
				</sngdate>
			</timeinfo>
			<current/>
		</timeperd>
		<status>
			<progress/>
			<update/>
		</status>
		<rseSpdom>
			<bounding>
				<westbc/>
				<eastbc/>
				<northbc/>
				<southbc/>
			</bounding>
		</rseSpdom>
		<keywords>
			<theme>
				<themekt/>
				<themekey/>
			</theme>
		</keywords>
		<bandidnt>
			<numbands/>
		</bandidnt>
		<accconst/>
		<useconst/>
	</idinfo>
	<metainfo>
		<metd/>
		<metc>
			<cntinfo>
				<cntperp>
					<cntper/>
				</cntperp>
				<cntaddr>
					<addrtype/>
					<city/>
					<state/>
					<postal/>
				</cntaddr>
				<cntvoice/>
			</cntinfo>
		</metc>
		<metstdn/>
		<metstdv/>
	</metainfo>
</metadata>