Currents or waves have had little or no influence on their present 

 distribution and as a consequence they show alraost no sorting. Since 

 the deposits now at the bottom of the cores were laid down, conditions 

 seem to have changed somewhat. Considerable difference was found in 

 many cases between the top and bottom of even such short cores as have 

 been taken up to this tJjne in the Antarctic, It is hoped that longer 

 cores may be secured by future expeditions. 



2, Ross Sea Area 



The Ross Sea lies entirely within the glacial marine sediment belt, 

 which in this area extends seaward to a depth of 3»500 meters or a 

 distance of between 200 and alraost 600 miles* Only a few scattered 

 cores have been taken in the area but these show the uniformity of 

 bottom conditions which persists over a large part of the area. Cores 

 taken near shore in shallovrer water contain more sand and larger parti- 

 cles tlian those taken below a depth of ^00 meters. Cores taken at 

 over 3,500 meters are very similar to those in the central portion of 

 the Ross Sea where depths are between 500 and 1,000 meters. On the 

 ■present cruise, 12 cores were taken in the Ross Sea area by means of 

 an 80-poujad Phleger corer. These included i|. taken in a line running 

 northwest from the Bay of Whales area, 3 off Kadjian Bay, 1 at the 

 entrance to Okuma Bay, and, k which were taken along the edge of the 

 Ross Ice Barrier from Little America to about 172° W« The character- 

 istics of most of these cores were very similar. The cores ranged in 

 length from 11 to 25 inches and averaged 17 inches. With one ex- 

 ception, naTioly the core taken on a hard bottom off Okuma Bay, 

 penetration was good. The color of the sedinents was un^jfoniily 

 dark yelJ.owish brown, although the cores taken off Kainan Bay had a 

 few streaks of greenish gray materiaD., Sphericity of the mineral and 

 rock fragments of sand size varied from low to moderate and was even 

 high in a few instances. Roundness of particles rai'ged from angular 

 to subrounded, but the great majority of the particles were decidedly 

 angular. The surface texture of the mineral fragments and those of 

 freshly broken grains was rough polished. 



The type of sediment found is usually best described as glacial 

 till with some sediments more closely resembling rock flour. Some 

 samples were fossiliferous and all were without sorting to any 

 appreciable extent. Pebbles vjere present in 5 of the 12 cores and 

 i-revs not inc].udec! in the sise analysis. The top and bottom of tho 

 cores showed a difference in amount of particles of sand size and 

 larger, the top of aU, cores ranging from 1 to 38 percent witJi an 

 average of only 7 percent, while the bottom of the cores varied be- 

 tween 9 and 59 percent with an. average of 3^ percent, A difference 

 between top and bottom of the core also was noted in the clay sized 

 fraction, the top ranging from 9 to 68 percent and averaging 55 per- 

 cent, and the bottom ranging from 30 to 62 percent and averaging U- 

 percent. 



