Chapter I, 



SCOPE AilD PR3SENT PROBLSIIS OF OGEAHOGRAPHY 



I. DEFINITION AlID GEITERAL SCOPE 



Oceanography has been aptly defined as the study of the world 

 below the surface of the sea: it should include the contact zone_ 

 between sea and atmosphere. According to present-day acceptance it 

 has to do with all the characteristics of the bottoa and margins of 

 the sea, of the sea water, and of the inhabitants of the latter. It 

 is thus widely inclusive, combining Geophysics, Geochemistry and 

 Biology, Inciusiveness is, of course, characteristic of any _ "young 

 science, and n;odern Oceanography is in its youth. But in this case 

 it is not so much youth that is responsible for the fact that these 

 several subsciences are still grouped together, but rather the 

 realization that the Physics and Chemistry and Biology of the sea 

 water are not only important per se , but that in most of the basic 

 problems of the sea all three of these subdivisions have_a part. And 

 with every advance in our knowledge of the sea making this inter- 

 dependence more and more apparent, it is not likely that we shall 

 soon see any general abandoni^nent of this concept of Oceanography as 

 a mother science, the branches of which, though necessarily attacked 

 by different disciplines, are intertwined too closely to be torn 

 apart. Every oceanic biologist should, therefore, be grounded in^the 

 principles of Geophysics and Geochemistry; every chemical or physical 

 oceanographer in some of the oceanic aspects of Biology, 



II. Divisions OF OCEANOGRAPHY 



In practice Oceanography naturally falls into three chief 

 divisions: (a) the geological; (b) the physical- chemical; (c) the 

 biologica.l. Up to recently these three disciplines were handled 

 jointly. But with improved technical methods, and greater refine- 

 ment, it has become more effective to examine them separately, and 

 then to combine the results in an attempt to understand the nature,! 

 economy of the sea. Thus, students of the sea tend to fall into the 

 three groups just mentioned, 



A rational order of presentation is to consider first the shape, 

 and composition of the basins that hold the oceans, i.e., submarine 

 geology; next the physical character and chemical composition of the 

 waters that fill these basins (Physics and Chemistry of sea water), 

 and third the nature and activities of the animals and plants that 

 inhabit the v/aters (Life in the Sea), 



A. SUBZiARINE GEOLOGY 



This subject covers the shapes of the oceanic slopes and floors, 

 and the materials of which the sea bottom is composed, the chcuiges 

 these undergo in the process of deposition, and such chemical P.v.d 

 physical features of the sea water as affect these changes, directly 



