FORAMINIFERA 



PART I. THE ICE-FREE AREA OF THE FALKLAND 

 ISLANDS AND ADJACENT SEAS 



By Edward Heron-Allen, f.r.s., and Arthur Earland, f.r.m.s. 

 (Plates VI-XVII, text-fig. i) 



INTRODUCTORY NOTE 



THE bottom deposits received from the R.R.S. ' Discovery' and the R.R.S. 'William 

 Scoresby ' cover a very wide area. Apart from gatherings made en route, which are too 

 widely scattered to yield much information except as regards new species contained 

 therein, some of which have been already described by us in the Journal of the Royal 

 Microscopical Society,^ they include detailed surveys of the sea bottom in 

 ' (i) the seas surrounding the Falkland Islands, 



(2) the South Georgia area, 



(3) the South Sandwich, the South Orkneys, the South Shetlands and off the 

 coast of the Antarctic Continent. 



The Falkland Islands, being entirely outside the region of ice, form a definite area 

 and constitute the subject of the present report. 



THE FALKLAND AREA AND ITS FORAMINIFERA 



The Falkland Islands — " Les lies Malouines" of d'Orbigny and the French geo- 

 graphers — are an extensive group consisting of two large and many small islands 

 situated between the 51-53 parallels of S latitude and the 57-61 meridians of W 

 longitude. They stand on the Continental Shelf which here extends for many hundreds 

 of miles from the South American coastline, sweeping out in a broad tongue to include 

 the islands. To the west and north of the group comparatively shallow water extends 

 over an enormous area, but on the south and east of the islands deeper water approaches 

 their shores and separates them from the great Burdwood Bank lying to the south of the 

 islands. This is an outlier of the Continental Shelf and is separated from the mainland 

 and from the Falkland Islands by over 100 miles of deep water. The 500-fathom line 

 envelops both the bank and the islands. 



The Falkland Islands are in the sub-Antarctic region, lying between the surface 

 isotherms of 6° and 12° C, and are therefore well outside the northernmost extension of 

 pack-ice. Most of the water passing Cape Horn and flowing up to the Falklands is of 



1 On the Pegididae, a new Family of Foraminifera, Vol. XLVIII, 1928, pp. 283-99, P^^- i-iii, fig- i- Some 

 new Foraminifera from the South Atlantic, No. i, Vol. XLix, 1929, pp. 102-8, pis. i-iii: No. 2, Vol. XLix, 

 1929, pp. 324-34. pis- i-iv: No. 3, Vol. L, 1930, pp. 38-45, pi. i. 



