T 



FORAMINIFERA 



PART II. SOUTH GEORGIA 



By Arthur Earland, f.r.m.s. 



(Plates I-VII, text-figs. 1-3) 



INTRODUCTORY NOTE 



HE first part of this Report dealt with the bottom deposits from the Falkland 

 Islands and the adjacent area. The present Report deals with the island of South 

 Georgia and the outlying Shag Rocks, situated some 800 miles to the eastward of the 

 Falklands in the Southern Ocean. 



Although there is no great diff"erence in latitude between the position of the Falkland 

 Islands (5i°-52° 30' S) and South Georgia (54°-55° S), it would be difficult to find two 

 areas so nearly in the same latitude presenting greater contrasts. The Falklands, lying on 

 the Continental Shelf of South America, are surrounded by a wide area of shallow water 

 with generally sandy bottom deposits, and, owing to the influence of the warm Pacific 

 water coming through the Drake Strait, are entirely free from ice and present a fauna of 

 a distinctly cool, temperate type. South Georgia, on the other hand, lies outside the 

 influence of the Pacific warm water and, surrounded by the cold Antarctic current 

 flowing northwards, is within the region of pack-ice. The island rises more or less 

 abruptly from deep water, so that the loo-fathom line lies quite near the coast. The land 

 area is mountainous and ice-covered, and there are many glaciers. These influence the 

 formation of the coastal deposits which, in contrast with the sandy deposits of the 

 Falkland area, are almost universally composed of a tenacious blue mud of which 

 Diatoms, so abundant in the surface waters of the Antarctic seas, form a notable con- 

 stituent. As a general result the bottom faunas of the two areas are very diff^erent. The 

 majority of the species which are dominant in the Falkland area are rare, and sometimes 

 absent in South Georgia. The local fauna in coastal waters is of a distinct type including 

 many species new to science, while in the deeper water it is more or less identical with 

 that found at similar depths in all seas. Following the general rule that the Arenacea 

 favour cold water, this group plays a larger part than usual even in the shallow coastal 



areas. 



PREVIOUS WORK IN THE AREA 



South Georgia represents practically virgin ground so far as the Foraminifera are 

 concerned. It was not touched by the Challenger, Scotia or Terra Nova Expeditions, 

 and, although the members of the Quest Expedition did much work on the island, the 

 paper on "Deep Sea Deposits and Dredgings" by Miss A. Vibert Douglas^ deals only 



1 Report on the Geological Collections made during the voyage of the "Quest" on the Shackleton-Rowett 

 Expedition to the South Atlantic and Weddell Sea in 1921-1922. British Museum (Natural History), 1930, 

 pp. 145-56. 



