HYDROLOGY OF THE BRANSFIELD STRAIT 



found in these latitudes, Antarctic surface water, warm deep water and Antarctic bottom 

 water. In the Bransfield Strait the layering is often more complicated, although the 

 warm deep layer is frequently absent. Factors introduced by the presence of ice and its 

 melting, and by the cooling and intense vertical mixing in winter, give rise to patches 

 of old water which appear out of place in the vertical column as reflected particularly 

 by the vertical temperature series. Unusual inversions of temperature and sometimes 

 of salinity are seen at some stations. Close to Graham Land and Trinity Peninsula 

 practically all trace of the warm deep water, as usually shown by an intermediate 

 maximum in temperature at about 500 m. depth in the neighbouring sea, is absent. 

 Figs. 4-6 give the surface salinity, temperature and density (a t ). Light water can be 



Fig. 4. Surface salinity: April 1927. 



seen in the surface close to the South Shetland Islands, and heavier colder water 

 spreading out from the north-west coast of Trinity Peninsula. The light water, which 

 flows as a north-east going set, consists of Antarctic surface water from the Bellings- 

 hausen Sea, and as later surveys have shown, enters the Bransfield Strait between 

 Smith Island and Snow Island and between Low Island and Smith Island. A branch 

 of this stream is seen as an eastward set reaching approximately 35 miles south-east of 

 Livingston Island, corresponding to the easterly set noted slightly more to the east of 

 this position on the Admiralty chart of the area. The heavier colder water close to the 

 Trinity Peninsula coast has its origin in the Weddell Sea; it has spread out round 



