ENVIRONMENTAL OCEANOGRAPHIC RESEARCH PROGRAM 

 OF THE BUREAU OF CCMffiRCIAL FISHERIES 



by 



Franklin Stearns 

 Biological Laboratory 

 U. S. Bureau of Commercial Fisheries 



Objectives of the program are: 1) to develop methods for describing, 

 explaining, and predicting the geographic distributions and abundances of 

 marine organisms, and their changes in time, and 2) to define the potential 

 of particular species as indicators of environmental oceanographic conditions. 

 Emphasis is on sedentary and sessile bottom dwelling forms on the Continental 

 Shelf of the western North Atlantic. For the most part existing data only 

 are used. Three major research projects are currently in operation. 



1. Mapping of the geographic distributions of selected marine species. 



2. Detailed environmental mapping - sufficiently comprehensive geo- 

 graphic data exist only for temperature, bathymetry and sediments. 



a. Mapping of bottom temperature parameters such as variance, 

 range, extreme values, and durations. 



b. Topographic mapping of the Middle Atlantic Continental Shelf 

 (from Veatch Canyon to Baltimore Canyon) is about 80 percent complete. It 

 is at a scale of 1:12'5,000 with a contour interval of one fathom. 



c. Bottom sediment (bottom type) overlays to the above topographic 

 map are in preparation. 



3. Cape Cod field study. Periodic samples of the bottom fauna (in- 

 cluding some sediment samples) have been taken since the summer of 1962 

 along a transect running from Cape Cod Light at Highlands to the 50-fathom 

 isobath. The bottom temperature-pressure environment along the same tran- 

 sect has been monitored since the spring of 1965 by recording instruments 

 installed in buoys in cooperation with the U. S. Coast Guard. 



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