MARINE BOTTOM SAMPLES OF LAST CRUISE OF CARNEGIE 



The explorational work of the Albatross was contin- 

 ued during the first part of this century: in the vicinity 

 of the Hawaiian Islands in 1902; in Alaskan waters in 

 1903; off the North American coast from 1904 to 1905; 

 in Alaskan waters, the Bering Sea, the Sea of Okhotsk, 

 and in the vicinity of Japan and in the Inland Sea in 1906; 

 in the vicinity of the Philippines from 1907 to 1910, off 

 the southern and lower California coasts and in the Gulf 

 of California in 1911; in the Gulf of Alaska in 1911; and 

 off the coasts of Washington and Oregon from 1914 to 

 1915.1 Except those collected under the direction of 

 Agassiz, most of the Albatross samples have not been 

 described fully. Trask, however, (1932) has determined 

 the contents of CaC03 and of organic matter in many of 

 them. 



The surveying work of the United States Coast and 

 Geodetic Survey ships Guide. Surveyor. Pioneer, Dis - 

 coverer, and others along the North American coast 

 from Panama to Alaska has similarly resulted in the 

 collection of hundreds of fairly large samples of which 

 there are no published descriptions, although Trask 

 (1932) has published the results of determinations of the 

 CaC03 and organic matter contents and of mechanical 

 analyses of many of them. Most of these samples are in 

 the collections of the Scripps Institution, whereas others 

 are in the United States National Museum. Chemical 

 analyses of thirty samples collected by the Surveyor 

 were made at the request of Dr. T. W. Vaughan by J. G. 

 Fairchild, of the United States Geological Survey. The 

 results of these analyses are given in the present report 

 and have been taken into account in drawing the maps, 

 given below, of the distribution of deposit types and of 

 CaC03 content in the area investigated. 



On the western side of the north Pacific the survey- 

 ing ships of the Japanese Navy, according to Yabe (in 

 Hanzawa, 1928), were engaged actively over a long peri- 

 od of years in observing the nature of the bottom and in 

 collecting deposit samples. Unfortunately, most of the 

 earlier samples were destroyed by the earthquake and 

 fire of 1923. About 700 samples, however, were collect- 

 ed between 1925 and 1928 in the southwestern north Pa- 

 cific by the surveying ship Mansyu (1933). Hanzawa has 

 published general descriptions of the deposit types rep- 

 resented and lists of the foraminilera, as well as a map 

 showing the distribution of marine deposits in the Pacif- 

 ic between 120° and 180° east, and from the equator to 

 37° north, based partly on the Mansyu samples in addi- 

 tion to all other available information. It is stated that 

 more detailed descriptions and mechanical analyses will 

 be given in a future publication. 



During recent years, in addition to the seventh cruise 

 of the Carnegie, several other oceanographic expeditions 

 have collected bottom samples in the Pacific; namely, 

 the Willebrord Snellius expedition in the Dutch East In- 

 dies, the expeditions of the William Scoresby and the 

 Discovery H in the Antarctic and along the South Ameri- 

 can coast, and of the U.S.S. Hannibal in the waters of the 

 Gulf of Panama and off the coast of Costa Rica. The de- 

 posits collected by the Willebrord Snellius have been 

 commented on briefly by van Riel (1932), the leader of 



For lists of the soundings, dredgings, and other 

 records of the Albatross from 1883 to 1920, see the re- 

 ports with appendices of the United States Fish Com- 

 mission, particularly C. H. Townsend, Dredging and 

 other Records of the United States Fish Commission's 

 steamer Albatross, with bibliography relative to the 



the expedition, and are being studied by Dr. Ph. H. Kue- 

 nen of GrSningen. 



Neaverson (1934) has published a general descrip- 

 tion of the samples collected in the Pacific by the Dis - 

 covery n and the William Scoresby . Earland (1934) has 

 described the foraminifera collected by these ships in 

 the Antarctic south of the Falkland Islands and South 

 America, and Moore (1933) has described certain cop- 

 rolitic pellets from the bottom samples. Neaverson in- 

 troduces the term "diatomaceous mud" to designate 

 those sediments occurring along the South American 

 coast and in certain parts of the south Atlantic which 

 contain large amounts of both diatom frustules and de- 

 trital mineral grains, and which were called diatom ooze 

 by Murray and Lee (1909). He also states that the char- 

 acteristic green color of many terrigenous deposits is 

 owing to the presence of chlorophyll. 



Approximately 130 samples, collected by the U.S.S. 

 Hannibal, are at present in the collections of the Scripps 

 Institution and it is hoped that these will be described in 

 the near future. Captain Allan Hancock on the Yacht 

 Velero HI has also collected bottom samples from the 

 eastern tropical Pacific, particularly in the region of 

 the Galapagos Islands. 



Tyler (1931) has reported the results of a study of 

 certain bottom samples from the Gulf of Alaska, most of 

 which were collected by the United States Coast and Ge- 

 odetic Survey ship Surveyor . Although the majority of 

 these samples are shallow -water, near -shore types, 

 several were collected at depths greater than 100 fath- 

 oms and one was collected at a depth of nearly 2200 fath- 

 oms, about 400 miles from land. The results of chemi- 

 cal analyses, rough mechanical separations, and detailed 

 determinations of the heavy and light minerals show, ac- 

 cording to Tyler, that a considerable part of the clay 

 fraction cannot be considered as kaolinite. Hypersthene, 

 often euhedral, and minerals of continental type, were 

 found to be the most abundant heavy constituents. The 

 presence of hypersthene is of interest in connection with 

 its corresponding abundance in the Carnegie deposits 

 collected off the coast of Japan. The locations of the 

 samples studied by Tyler are shown on chart 1. 



Galliher (1932) has published mechanical and par- 

 tial chemical analyses of sediments from Monterey Bay; 

 Trask (1931) has given the results of mechanical analy- 

 ses of samples collected at depths down to 2000 meters 

 in the region of the Channel Islands off the southern Cal- 

 ifornia coast. In a following section the mechanical 

 analyses by Galliher and Trask of the finer sediments 

 will be compared with those of the red clays collected by 

 the Carnegie . 



In the above review most of the papers cited are those 

 in which deep-sea bottom samples collected by various 

 exploring expeditions in the Pacific are partially or com- 

 pletely described. No account has been given of other 

 papers on certain aspects of the samples by such inves- 

 tigators as Gumbel (1878), Murray and Renard (1883- 

 1884), Brady (1884), Buchanan (1891), Murray andlr- 

 vine (1891 and 1894), HOgbom (1894), Harrison and 

 Jukes-Brown (1895), Thoulet (1901, 1902, 1931), East- 

 work of the vessel, in United States Fish Commission- 

 er's Report for 1900, pp. 387-562, 1901; the appendices 

 to the reports for 1902, pp. 397-432; 1903, pp. 123-138; 

 1905 (U. S. Fish Commission Document 603); 1906 (U. S. 

 F. C. Document 621); 1910 (U. S. F. C. Document 741); 

 1920 (U. S. F. C. Document 897). 



