Office of Naval Research on the recently emerged 

 island of Surtsey, off Iceland. Here the ecologist 

 has the advantage of sterile conditions, new land 

 of extensive area, and freedom from immediate 

 influence by neighboring regions. 



b. We are better able to describe the distribution 

 of physical and chemical properties of the ocean, 

 and to understand more fully the dynamic pro- 

 cesses which affect this distribution. 



(1) Recent investigations sponsored by NSF 

 and ONR have been directed toward deep water 

 waves and wave trains as they move up onto the 

 continental shelf, undergoing deformation as 

 they arrive in shallower water. 



Quantitative descriptions of the directional 

 spectra of ocean swells, attenuation, dispersion, 

 and areas of origin, in the North Pacific are now 

 available. Combined support has permitted the 

 recent development of numerical methods for 

 predicting the directional spectra of waves in the 

 entire North Atlantic. These studies are excellent 

 examples of combining theoretical and empirical 

 information for the purpose of forecasting, which 

 of course can be useful in the routing of merchant 

 vessels. 



(2) Marine scientists participating in the Inter- 

 national Indian Ocean Expedition found the 

 Arabian Sea to be, occasionally, oxygen poor with 

 an attendant excess of hydrogen sulfide. This 

 appears to be the cause for the discoveries of 

 millions of tons of dead (asphyxiated) fish in 

 certain areas of the Indian Ocean. It has now been 

 fairly well established that these wholesale deaths 

 are due to several factors, i.e., subsurface water 

 extremely rich in inorganic nutrients but very 

 poor in dissolved oxygen, the rapid growth and 

 production of plankton which use these nutrients 

 and sunlight to produce organic matter, and the 

 sudden upwelling of water over a broad area. 



(3) The Bureau of Commercial Fisheries is now 

 using its new understanding of large-scale varia- 

 tions in the physical properties of the ocean to 

 make predictions of the availability of a number of 

 commercially important fishes. 



(4) Studies of the equatorial current systems 

 sponsored by NSF, ONR and BCF seem to indicate 

 that equatorial circulation is similar and sym- 

 metrical in the oceans. This is based on discoveries 

 of an equatorial undercurrent some time ago in 

 the Pacific, and recently, its counterpart in the 



Atlantic. It has also been demonstrated that a 

 south equatorial counter-current exists in the 

 Atlantic, and is associated with the monsoon winds 

 of the Gulf of Guinea, which reverse their direc- 

 tion seasonally. A similar phenomenon has been 

 observed in the Indian Ocean. 



c. Although we have a long way to go, we have 

 learned more about the interrelationships of the 

 oceans and atmosphere. 



Scientific investigations of the ocean and 

 atmospheric systems have traditionally dealt with 

 one system at a time. Through development of 

 specialized instrumentation, meteorologists have 

 linked continental observatories with more re- 

 cently established observatories in the open ocean. 

 Recently there has been a concerted attempt to 

 approach air-sea interaction as a single inter- 

 disciplinary problem. Many studies are underway 

 to determine the effect of the coupling of wind 

 regimes with ocean water masses and current 

 systems. Among these projects is an investigation 

 of the partition of gases between aqueous and 

 gaseous phases. Recently, NSF-supported scien- 

 tists have discovered that nitrogen dissolved in 

 ocean water does not exchange with the nitrogen 

 of dissolved nitrates. This has important implica- 

 tions not only with respect to nitrogen in the sea 

 and atmosphere, but also in the distribution and 

 character of nutrients. 



d. With new capabilities, we have been better 

 able to describe the seafloor, and to understand its 

 long-term and short-term evolution, its topog- 

 raphy, geophysical nature, and subsurface struc- 

 ture. We have also learned more about the 

 seafloor's relation to the surrounding land masses. 



(1) Geophysical data — gravity, seismic, and 

 magnetic — have been collected over wide regions 

 of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Fault zones 

 have been located along the flank of the Puerto 

 Rican Trench and major fracture zones have 

 been found in the North Atlantic. One interesting 

 finding is that the mantle under some parts of the 

 mid-Adantic ridge is of abnormally low density. 

 It also appears that the thickest marine deposits 

 are adjacent to the continental margin and that 

 in many cases, they may have been deposited by 

 massive submarine flows down the shelf. Bathy- 

 metric data accumulated by research and survey 

 ships have allowed a more precise mapping of the 

 ocean floor; numerous ridges, seamounts, ocean 



