toms. The nature of the sea bottom was de- 

 termined by first taking a grab sample at every 

 station. Aboard the ship immediately after col- 

 lection, the gravity core sediment samples were 

 extruded from the core liner w^ith a core pusher 

 that also introduced the least metal contamina- 

 tion. After extrusion, the surficial portion 

 around the sediment core was carefully scraped 

 out using a teflon-coated spatula. This step was 

 introduced to minimize the inclusion of any 

 soupy sediment that might have run down the 

 length of the core from the top during retrieval 

 of the corer. Then the sediment core was cut 

 into two longitudinal halves, one of which was 

 cut into a number of convenient small trans- 

 verse sections. Almost immediately after this, 

 the pH and temperature of these wet sediments 

 were measured with a Coleman, Model 37A, 

 portable pH-Eh meter and a glass thermometer, 

 respectively. The interstitial fluids of these 

 sediment sections were separately squeezed out 

 into polyethylene bottles using squeezers de- 

 scribed by Reeburgh (1967). In order to avoid 

 chemical precipitation of some hydroxides and 

 biochemical reactions the expressed interstitial 

 fluids were acidified with 0.1 ml of cone. HCl 

 and stored frozen. After it was examined and 

 photographed, the second half of each core was 

 cut into a number of transverse sections aboard 

 the ship and stored at freezing temperature in 

 polyethylene bags and bottles for further lab- 

 oratory analysis. 



Prior to storing, the inorganic P concentra- 

 tions in the sediment interstitial fluids were 

 determined colorimetrically aboard the ship. At 

 the Institute laboratory the K, Na, Ca, Mg, Fe 

 and Mn concentrations in 40 of these samples 

 were analyzed in a Perkin-Elmer, Model 290, 

 atomic absorption spectrophotometer. 



Forty water samples were collected from 14 

 stations with Niskin bottles at various depths. 

 Aboard the ship 500 ml of these water samples 

 were filtered through 0.45 {i millipore filter 

 papers in order to separate suspended par- 

 ticulate matter. 



Approximately 1-gallon unfiltered water 

 samples were collected at a number of depths 

 from two stations (table 1). These samples 

 were frozen for trace transition metal analyses 

 at the Institute laboratory. The concentrations 

 of Cu, Co, Ni, Fe, Zn, and Pb were determined 

 with an atomic absorption spectrophotometer. 



following the APDC/MIBK extraction tech- 

 nique of Brooks et al. (1967). The water 

 samples were not filtered prior to chemical 

 analysis because previous experience had in- 

 dicated potential contamination problems from 

 filtering, and because the particulate content 

 of the samples was exceedingly low. Thus, the 

 present analysis represents only total ex- 

 tractable ions (written communication, Mr. M. 

 Lee, Institute of Marine Science, University of 

 Alaska) . 



Benthic organisms having a size between 2.8 

 mm and 0.99 mm were collected from 16 sta- 

 tions by wet-sieving a measured volume of 

 bottom sediments collected by the Van Veen 

 grab sampler. Organisms thus separated were 

 preserved in 10 percent formalin solution, 

 buff'ered with sodium acetate, for identification 

 and cataloging in the laboratory. 



The gravel-sand-silt-clay contents of the core 

 sections and detailed size distributions of the 

 barrier beach sediments were determined by 

 following the method of Krumbein and Petti- 

 john (1938). Conventional grain size para- 

 meters were calculated based on the formulae 

 of Folk and Ward (1957). 



A set of 24 sediment samples was selected 

 for clay mineral analysis from the inshore shelf 

 area of the Chukchi Sea adjacent to Alaska. 

 Two of them were obtained from Dr. J. S. 

 Creager, University of Washington, and the 

 remainder, including two from south of the 

 Bering Strait, were collected from the GLA- 

 CIER on WEBSEC-70. In the le8s-than-2 |x 

 fraction of the bottom sediment samples and 

 in two samples of suspended sediments the clay 

 mineral assemblage was determined by X-ray 

 diffraction technique. Details of the techniques 

 and steps adopted for the separation of the 

 less than 2 /j, fraction, the X-ray analysis, and 

 the method of quantifying the clay minerals 

 were similar to those presented by Naidu et al. 

 (1971). 



RESULTS 



Grain-Size Analysis 



Vertical variations of the percentage com- 

 position of gravel-sand-silt-clay in the cores 

 are presented in table I (appendix A) and 

 illustrated in figure 2. In the majority of the 

 cores there is a general coarsening in the sedi- 



174 



