102 U.S. NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 291 



this water mass has the highest concentrations of nutrients. These rise 

 close to the surface, particularly in the area of divergence, and are 

 utilized by the phytoplankton during the season of productivity. 



The Antarctic Ocean, therefore, is not a closed system circulating 

 around the Antarctic Continent without renewal ; it has an inseparable, 

 dynamic association with the oceans that lie to the north, contributing 

 Intermediate and Bottom Waters and receiving Deep Water. Not only 

 is the volume of water in balance, but the physical properties remain 

 stable also by external processes of cooling and heating, formation and 

 melting of ice, evaporation and precipitation, and mixing. 



Analysis of Environmental Parameters; Correlation 

 with Distribution of B. abyssicola in the Antarctic 

 Ocean 



While the general features of the oceanography of the Southern 

 Ocean are known, there is little published specific material on the 

 details of the distribution of physicochemical parameters over the 

 broad expanse of the Antarctic Ocean. Deacon's classic work remains 

 the primary source of data ; this is based upon a few transects across the 

 Southern Ocean around the continent. Most of the Discovery transects 

 were diagonal to the meridians, so the vertical sections of oceano- 

 graphic parameters are not meridional, and often one end of a section 

 represents conditions many miles to the east or west of the other end. 

 Certainly the information has been valuable and much sound physical 

 and biological work has been based on it. Attempts to determine the 

 effects of oceanographic parameters on the distribution and biology of 

 marine organisms, however, must be based upon data that coincide in 

 time and space with the captures of the specimens. Variations of appre- 

 ciable magnitude occur even in the stable Antarctic Ocean, and as will 

 be pointed out in the following discussion, perhaps some earlier ideas 

 of Antarctic oceanography will need revising. 



Completely simultaneous oceanographic and capture data, of course, 

 are extremely difficult to get, but operations aboard the Eltanin are 

 such that oceanographic stations are taken within a few hours and a 

 few miles of biological stations. In the future, biological and oceano- 

 graphic station information should be available in a computer pro- 

 gram. Oceanographic data will be summarized and plotted on vertical 

 sections. For the present work, however, only lists of raw data were 

 available, and I have constructed the vertical sections from them. 

 Meridional sections were constructed along 25°, 35°, 55°, 65° 75°, 

 115°, 130°, and 160° west longitudes, and latitudinal sections along 

 60° south latitude from 25° to 160° west longitude. The vertical sections 



