complex. Among the main conclusions of this work was that the large peculiar velocities measured implied large values of $\Omega$, a result that placed cosmic flows at odds with several other analyses. By the end of the 80’s the first attempt to produce a homogeneous catalog by merging different peculiar velocity data set was made (Mark II) and used to obtain the first map of the dark matter in the nearby universe [@potent]. Even though providing an important first glimpse of the dark matter distribution, this early map showed that important regions of the sky were severely undersampled.

In subsequent years a major effort was made to expand the available sample to confirm the conclusions of the 7S and to improve the mass maps. These efforts included small surveys of specific areas of the sky [@courteausurvey][@willickdata] and major TF surveys of spirals, such as those carried out by Matthewson and collaborators [@mat1][@mat2] and the SFI survey [@haynes1][@haynes2], and FP surveys of early-type galaxies, such as the recently completed ENEAR survey [@enear]

Trying to capitalize as much as possible on all of the available data, Willick and collaborators[@markiii] assembled the data from these different surveys into a catalog (Mark III) consisting 