80 EIGHTH PACIFIC SCIENCE CONGRESS 



bably of Pleistocene age and are bored by marine animals and support 

 a vigorous epifauna. These facts suggest that an area of geologically 

 young sediments is being destroyed by bottom scour on the sides of 

 the Cook Strait Canyon, leaving the more resistant concretion on the sea 

 bottom, where currents are sufficient (in depths of 100 to 120 fathoms) 

 to prevent sediment accumulating. 



B. L. Wood and I. McKellar (Geological Survey, Invercargill) have 

 begun a study of bottom topography and sediment in Foveaux Strait 

 off the East Coast of Otago. A submarine lignite from Foveaux Strait 

 has been shown by pollen analysis to be Plio-Pleistocene in age, and 

 to represent a cool climate (Couper, N.Z. J. Sci. Tech. B 33 (3): 178-86). 



By arrangement with the Galathea Expedition authorities R. A. 

 Couper is working on the spores and pollen grains in a sediment core 

 obtained by H.D.M.S. Galathea in Milford Sound. Preliminary re- 

 sults suggest that it may be possible to determine the rate of sedimenta- 

 tion in the glacially over-deepened basin with the rock bar near the 

 entrance to the sound owing to the appearance of pollen from intro- 

 duced Cupressus trees at the top of the core. 



Some further information on the White Island Trench, described 

 by Fleming at the 7th Pacific Science Congress (1953, Proc. 7th Pacific 

 Sci. Congr. 3:210-12), is now available as the result of echo sounding 

 and a gravimetric survey. The trench, which is interpreted as the 

 submarine continuation of the Rangitaiki Graben, has now been traced 

 north eastward into the Bay of Plenty to depths in excess of 1300 fath- 

 oms, and additional work has shown that a parallel depression runs 

 seaward on its west side, defining the ridge on which stands the White 

 Island volcano. Gravity surveys of the Bay of Plenty have shown that 

 the landward part of the trench is an area of negative anomaly, with 

 a maximum difference of 50 milligals between the trench and the up- 

 lifted blocks which bound it on either side-. Neither the gravity profiles, 

 nor the echo traces are evidence that the depression has particularly 

 steep walls, although these have been mapped geologically as faulty. 

 The bottom relief offshore corresponds in detail with the gravity pro- 

 file along the coast. 



III. Biological (A. W. B. Powell) 

 A considerable amount of work that may be classified under the 

 heading of biological oceanography is at present in progress at the 

 several University Colleges, Museums and other scientific institutions 

 in this country and an outline of the nature and scope of this work 

 follows: 



