132 The Three-dimensional Temperature Distribution and its Variation in Time 



The Sulu Sea between Borneo and the Philippines is connected in the north with the 

 Pacific through a sill with a maximum depth of about 400 m. Below this depth the 

 vertical temperature gradient becomes very small and down to the greatest depth at 

 approximately 5580 m the temperature remains almost constant (minimum 10-07°C 

 at 1225 m, rising to 10-42°C at the bottom). The deep basin of the Celebes (greatest 

 depth 6220 m) has an almost constant temperature below 1400 m (sill depth at 1400 m 

 in the Kawio Strait). The broad Banda Basin has a sill depth of 3130 m and in the 

 northern part shows a temperature minimum of 3-04 °C at 2990 m, in the southern part 

 3-06 °C at 2720 m. 



Similar conditions are also present in the American Mediterranean. The main 

 morphological structure consists of three major basins: the Gulf of Mexico, the 

 Yucatan Basin with the Cayman Trench and the Caribbean Basin (Parr, 1932, 

 1937, 1938; see also, Dietrich, 1937, 1939). Table 59 shows the vertical distribution 

 of temperature and salinity at three stations in the three major basins of this adjacent 

 sea. Figure 56 shows several characteristic vertical temperature distributions for four 

 adjacent seas. 



Table 59. Vertical distribution of temperature and salinity in the 

 American Mediterranean 



The question of the origin and renewal of the deep water in individual basins from 

 different sides has been discussed on the basis of the modern oceanographic data 

 collected by the "Atlantis" Expedition in the spring of 1933 and 1934 in the Carib- 

 bean, and by the "Mabel Taylor" Expedition in 1932 in the Gulf of Mexico. There are 

 only two passages through the Antilles that are important for the conditions in the 

 deep layers of the American Mediterranean: the Windward Passage between Cuba 

 and Haiti (sill depth at 1600 m), and the Anegada-Virgin Passage (sill depths at 



