112 



Water 



FLOW OF BOTTOM WATER 

 BETWEEN BASINS 



50 

 MLOMETERS 



NUMBERS SHOW 



TEMPERATURE 



AT BOTTOM 



Figure 99. Paths followed by waters in flow from basin to basin. Width of Hnes serves as rough indicator of transport 

 volume. From Emery (1954c, Fig. 6). 



ment of Santa Barbara Basin would lead in 

 20 years to an increase of nitrate-nitrogen 

 concentration in the basin water to values 

 more than 5 /xg-atoms/liter in excess of those 

 of the open sea at the depth of the basin sill. 

 The lack of a measurable difference in the 

 nitrate-nitrogen concentration indicates that 

 the water is replenished in less than 20 years. 

 As is discussed in a following section on 

 standing internal waves of the basins, it is 

 believed that more or less continuous mix- 

 ing of basin waters with the overlying inter- 

 mediate water is the chief method of replen- 

 ishment of the basin waters. 



It is clear that the characteristics of the 



waters below the sills of basins off southern 

 California are completely independent of 

 processes operating at the sea surface in the 

 region. In this respect the waters are sim- 

 ilar in origin to those of basins in the East 

 Indies (van Riel, 1934; van Riel, Hamaker, 

 and van Eyck, 1950), the southern basins of 

 the Gulf of California (Sverdrup and Staff, 

 1943), the West Indies (Parr, 1937; Dietrich, 

 1939), and the floor of the Atlantic Ocean 

 (Schott, 1902). Oxygen content may be 

 high or low, depending on the depth of the 

 sill relative to the zone of oxygen minimum 

 in the open sea. A second, third, and fourth 

 kind of basin exists, each of which contains 



