36 



MARTON AND GENERAL GREENE EXPEDITIONS 



port past the Egedesminde section is estimated as follows : One- 

 third of the current entered Disko Bay as described in the next 

 paragraph ; about two-thirds of the remainder entered the aforemen- 

 tioned eddy; and about 0.3 million cubic meters per second flowed 

 northerly across the mouth of Disko Bay and joined the bay dis- 

 charge there. 



Disko Bay. — This section embraced a band of West Greenland Cur- 

 rent, 0.44 million cubic meters per second, which had hugged Great 

 Hellefiske Bank and entered Disko Bay along the southern shore. A 

 discharge, approximately equal to the indraft, filled the northern half 

 of the bay's entrance. This band of westerly flowing current is of 

 particular interest to the Ice Patrol because it transports many of the 

 icebergs calved from Disko Bay glaciers out on the main pathways 

 toward the North Atlantic. (See Smith 1931, p. 143). 



Disko Island. — Our northernmost observations (except those in the 

 Vaigat, not discussed here), section G (fig. 11), extended from the 

 soutliwestern point of Disko Island diagonally out into Davis Strait. 

 It was intended to make a complete traverse of Davis Strait, but, as 

 related by Ricketts (1932), pack ice off Cape Dier, Baffin Land, 

 stopped the Marion 30 miles short of the goal. If the bathymetric 

 and station maps be consulted, they show that section G lies along 

 the top of a ridge which juts out into Davis Strait. Stations 1014 to 

 1016 continue the section across the continental slope and into the 

 deep w^ater of the Baffin Bay Basin near its southern rim. Station 

 1016, with its deepest observation at 1,200 meters, most probably 

 penetrated into sluggish bottom water and therefore permits a fairly 

 accurate calculation of the currents farther inshore as shown on the 

 velocity profile. 



Tha alternation of direction of the components as shown by the 

 successive areas bounded by the zero velocity lines on section G (fig. 

 11) when compared with the surface current map (fig. 8) indicates 

 a band of winding current, probably the southern side of an eddy cen- 

 tered farther north in Baffin Bay. The main channel of Davis Strait, 

 stations 1014 to 1016 (fig. 11) was filled with weak northerly current 

 which totaled 0.9 million cubic meters per second in volume. If the 

 velocity profile be compared with the corresponding temperature and 

 salinity profiles (figs. 20 and 21, pp. 45-46), this band of northerly 

 current is quite definitely identified as West Greenland Current 

 which penetrated directly into Baffin Bay. 



A resume of the volume of flow (the transport) of the slope band 

 of the West Greenland Current along the slope from Cape Farewell 

 northward to Baffin Bay, expressed in millions of cubic meters per 

 second for 1928, is contained in tlie following table : 



Section 



Cape Farewell (A) 



Ivigtut (B) 



Fiskernaessett (C) 

 Oodthaab(D) 



Volume of 

 flow 



3.2 

 7.4 



5.3 



Section 



Holsteinsborg (E) 

 Egedesminde (F). 

 Disko Bay (Fi)... 

 Disko Island (G). 



Volume of 

 flow 



1.3 

 1.3 

 0.4 

 0.9 



It can be seen from the above table that a constant diminution 

 in the current from south to north was interrupted at Ivigtut, 



