Ill 



Food web studies are fundamental not only to the AEC's problem' 

 involving radioisotopes, but also to many other problems of under- 

 standing, usmg and controlling the sea and its resources. For example 

 an understanding of the food web is necessary for predicting the effects 

 of any other nonnuclear contaminant. 



Also, if "farming" the sea is to be a reality, it is necessary to know 

 the factors which make for optimum growth of desired species as well 

 as those which are detrimental. 



AEC contractors have made significant contributions over the past 

 several years by way of developing instruments, and techniques for 

 identifying and measuring nutrient cycles and trace substances nec- 

 essary to life in the sea; also to distinguish living from nonliving 

 organic substances. 



An automatic analyzer system has been developed to determine ni- 

 trates, phosphates, silicates, and chlorophyll automatically and con- 

 tinuously on shipboard while the vessel is underway. Tliis 

 development should be a great aid in describing the reasons for the 

 "patchy" distributions of plankton in the sea 



AEC is also concerned with understanding the life cycles and dis- 

 tributions of fish populations in the sea in order to predict the iiptake 

 and possible effects of radioactivity both somatically and genetically, 

 on the species. 



Toward this end, AEC has financially supported projects with the 

 Bureau of Commercial Fisheries in selected geographical areas of 

 direct concern to AEC, that is, off the Columbia River and the aero- 

 space launch pads on both coasts of the United States. 



A spinoff of the Columbia River projects has been the discovery of 

 a large hake population residing at several hundred feet off the coast 

 of Oregon and Washington. 



In a related project AEC is supporting work at Scripps Institution 

 of Oceanography which is shedding light, literally and fig-uratively, 

 on fish and shellfish populations, apparently thriving at depths below 

 1,000 fathoms. 



Sea water, while one of the most abundant substances in the world, 

 is an extremely complex chemical system. Worldwide fallout and other 

 radioactive substances, natural as well as man made, which find their 

 way to the sea are being employed to unravel some of the ocean's 

 mysteries. 



The vastness of the sea, coupled with its complex chemistry makes 

 it extremely difficult to find and measure this radioactivity. 



Physicists, chemists, and radiochemists, with AEC support, have 

 invented instruments and developed techniques to measure extremely 

 low concentrations of radioactivity and related trace elements in sea 

 water. One such development is resulting in what appears to be a new 

 understanding of chemical mixing in the sea. I personally consider 

 this in the nature of a breakthrough in chemical oceanography. 



An in situ instrument utilizing KCFC — KCFC is an acronym for 

 a form of potassium cobalt ferrocyanide, a granular chemical sorber 

 which selectively extracts cesium from sea water, is being used to 

 measure vertical profiles of cesium-137 — a radioactive fallout element. 



In its first year of use in the Pacific Ocean, it enabled the detection 

 of narrow-band concentration peaks some distance below the sur- 

 face. Heretofore, it was assumed that the radiocesium had a more or 

 less uniform gradient from the surface down. 



