There was very little silt-clay material in the surface sediments 

 of the study area, ranging from 0.00 to 0.22 percent in November-December 

 and 0.00 to 0.28 percent in May. There were no strong nearshore-off shore 

 trends in the percentage of silt-clay. 



The percentages of carbon within the sediments for both organic 

 carbon and carbonate were also very low with little spatial or temporal 

 variation. Organic carbon ranged from 0.03 to 0.52 percent in November- 

 December and 0.03 to 0.30 percent in May. Carbon as carbonate ranged from 

 0.00 to 1.36 percent in November-December and from 0.02 to 2.23 percent in 

 May. There were no strong nearshore-off shore trends for either organic 

 carbon or carbonate. However, the nearshore stations 1 and 2 seemed to 

 exhibit overall lower organic carbon values. 



There were no discernible east-west trends among the sediment para- 

 meters. The surface sediments of the entire study area consist of fine to 

 medium coarse quartz sands, containing very low levels of silt-clay, organic 

 carbon, and carbonate. 



The sediment parameters of the borrow sites Bl and B2 did not differ 

 markedly from the control stations CA and CB, with the exception of a 

 slightly greater percentage of fine sand at the borrow sites. 



b. Comparisons to Saloman's (1976) Study . Comparisons of mean grain 

 size, percent silt-clay, percent organic carbon and percent carbonate 

 between this study and Saloman's (1974-75) data are presented in Tables 9 

 and 10. Only minor differences were found between the two studies. There 

 is a slight but consistent increase of mean grain size (phi) from 1974-75 

 to 1979-80, indicating a slightly finer substrate composition in 1979-80 

 (see Fig. 5). However, the percentage of silt-clay material was apparently 

 greater during 1974-75. 



For both sampling periods the finest sediments (based on mean grain 

 size) were recorded from the borrow sites, although they had nearly the 

 lowest levels of silt-clay material. Comparisons of silt-clay percentages 

 are shown in Figure 6. 



The organic carbon and carbonate percentage values were higher during 

 1979-80 (0.03 to 0.52 percent organic carbon, 0.00 to 2.23 percent carbonate) 

 than during 1974-75 (0.01 to 0.16 percent organic carbon, 0.00 to 0.77 per- 

 cent carbonate). Comparisons are shown in Figures 7 and 8. 



Only relatively small changes were found in the various sediment 

 parameters between the current and 1974-75 data. Slight differences in 

 processing techniques by the respective investigators and nonnal sampling 

 variation would account for the observed changes. 



4 . Benthic Fauna . 



a. Present Study . A total of 5,044 individuals, representing 128 

 taxa, were collected from 28 November to 1 December 1979 at the 49 benthic 



26 



