OCEAN

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+ lume 5, No. 3 5.. Volume 5, No.3, 1994 OCEAN published 1995

The Magazine of the Challenger Society for Marine Science

EDITOR EDITORIAL BOARD Angela Colling Chairman Bill Prior-Jones Specialist in Applied Marine Science ASSOCIATE EDITOR John Wright Martin Angel Southampton Centre

Dennis Burton Southampton Oceanography Centre

Keith Dyer Institute of Marine Studies, University of Plymouth

Peter Foxton formerly Natural Environment Research Council (Marine Sciences)

Tim Jickells School of Environmental Sciences, University of East Anglia

John Jones University College, London

Rachel Mills Southampton Oceanography Centre

John Scott Defence Research Agency, Winfrith Angela Colling and John Wright are both at the Department of Earth Sciences, Bill Turrell The Open University, Walton Hall, Milton Keynes, Scottish Office Buckinghamshire MK7 6AA, UK Agriculture and Fisheries Department

SCOPE AND AIMS INSTITUTIONAL SUBSCRIPTIONS Ocean Challenge aims to keep its readers up to date Ocean Challenge is published three times a year. with what is happening in oceanography in the UK and The subscription (including postage by surface mail) Europe. By covering the whole range of marine-related is f70.00 ($1 33) per year for libraries and other sciences in an accessible style it should be valuable institutions. New subscriptions, renewals and both to specialist oceanographers who wish to broaden information about changes of address should be sent their knowledge of marine sciences, and to informed to Parjon Information Services, PO Box 144, lay persons who are concerned about the oceanic Haywards Heath, West Sussex, RHI 6 2YX, UK. environment. Ocean Challenge is sent automatically to members The views expressed in Ocean Challenge are those of of the Challenger Society for Marine Science. the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the For more information about the Society, see inside Challenger Society or the Editor. back cover. 0 Challenger Society for Marine Science, 1995 DATA PROTECTION ACT, 1984 (UK) Printed in the UK by Halstan & Co. Ltd, Amersham, Bucks Under the terms of this Act, you are informed that this magazine is sent to you through the use of a lSSN 0959 01 61 computer-based mailing list. CONTENTS 2 Forthcoming Events 4 All change at Brent Spar John Wright 6 Plus Fa change ... Tony Rice 8 Rarity: a biological conundrum Martin Angel

10 Professor Ray Beverton, CBE, FRS, Fisheries Biologist, 1922-1 995 11 News and Views 16 Now, There's a Funny Thing! 'Full many a gem ...' Tony Rice 18 Book Reviews

22 The Oceanography of the Eastern Mediterranean Michael D. Krom 29 Fisheries: Present Status and Future Prospects Paul Rodhouse, Martin White and lnigo Everson 34 The Collections: 70 Years of Sampling the Ocean's Fauna Martin V. Angel 40 Bioacoustics and : Living Clues for the Naval Strategist Howard Roe, Gwyn Griffiths and Peter Herring

The cover image shows the global phytoplanl

loading boom Map to show the proposed dump site of number of marine biologists (includ- the Brent Spar, at about 59" N, 11" W ing Tony Rice, see above), who accommodation (0),and its previous position (0)east of understand the benthic marine Shetland. Shaded areas are low ridges of environment better than most. More sediment deposited from bottom currents, importantly, these experts had not and known as 'drifts'. previously been consulted by either Shell or Greenpeace. They gave their opinions independently, and only Greenpeace mobilised so much ! after the controversy had become public opinion that motorists in widely publicised. buoyancy Germany, Holland and Denmark, not tanks to mention UK and Switzerland, Is it possible that the outcome of the boycotted Shell petrol stations - one dispute between Shell and Green- or two in Germany even got bombed. peace had more to do with politics They seem also to have persuaded the than with science? Let us delve a German, Dutch and Danish Govern- little further back in history. Brent ments to put pressure on Britain to Spar is (or was) an oil storage plat- halt the operation - pressure which form some 130 m in height (1 09 m of the UK Government robustly resisted. it under water), weighing 14500 Then suddenly in June, when the rig tonnes, stationed originally in the was half-way through its journey, northern North Sea off Shetland. Shell caved in and announced it Built in the mid-1970s, it became storage tanks would seek another disposal method. redundant in 1991, with construction The Government was not amused. of the direct pipeline from the Brent Greenpeace and their supporters were field to Shetland's Sullom Voe termi- ' compartment jubilant. On the face of it, a wicked nal. Shell claimed - and there is no for fixed ballast multinational corporation had been reason to doubt them -that they

.- . . . ..- prevented from fouling up the marine spent three years weighing up the ...... environment to save itself a few disposal options, which included millions in decommissioning costs. both decommissioning (dismantling) And it made great television. But it's on land and partial dismantling in The design ofthe Brent Spar. The oil-rich not so simple as that, because there is situ, as well as dumping in deep sludge is mostly in the storage tanks near a surprising counter-intuitive twist to water (see Ocean Challenge, Vol. 3 the base of the structure, just above the this tale: support for Shell's deep- (2/3), 1993, pp.46-7). Partial dis- haematite ballast. water disposal option came from a mantling in situ was ruled out, because of the requirement to leave So what now? The latest develop- scientists. Their original plan would at least 50m of clear water above the ment is an offer from Norway to help have cost about f 12 million, of remains - nearly two-thirds of the dismantle the rig. It would be towed, which some f8 million would have installation would have to be re- still upright, to a deep-water anchor- come back to them in tax conces- moved. Disposal on land (in the UK) age in a Norwegian fjord, pending a sions. Now they have to find an was ruled out because the platform final decision as to its fate. Our latest estimated extra £35 million, on would have to be turned on its side information is that this has been done which there will be no tax refund. for towing into shallow water - and -the rig is now moored in a fjord So whv did Shell not stick to their the sheer size of the thing, weakened near Stavanger. Could safe disman- guns, explain the contrasted hazards by battering by winter storms (and by tling and disposal be achieved of the two o~tions.stress that this is a damage sustained during installation), without contaminating the restricted one-off case: and so win back public could cause it to break up, releasing waters of a fjord? We must await o~inion.both in UK and the rest of its load of potentially toxic wastes developments. Europe? In the event, more recent into the North Sea. An added diffi- press reports have suggested that Meanwhile, there is a puzzle. Shell culty with this option is the ballast in Shell may even end up opting for the had the full support of the UI< Gov- the base (6000 tonnes of haematite) deep-sea option after all. ernment, and they found powerful placed there to ensure the platform (and unexpected) allies in a consider- stayed upright. able line-up of knowledgeable John Wright And what of the toxic wastes? Apart from some hundreds of kilograms of heavy metals forming part of the structure itself (in electrical installa- tions etc.), our best information And while on the rubiect ... (where previous research has been suggests there are some I00 tonnes of focussed) but on or near mid-ocean Readers may have seen coverage of petroleum-rich sludge, apparently ridges, where natural concentrations this issue in Nature (29 June and 20 largely sand impregnated with of heavy metals should be sufficient July) and those north of the border bituminous residues. There are also to accommodate most anthro- may also have read an article by about 30 tonnes of hard 'scale', pogenic additions (we Europeans Martin Angel (IOS Deacon Labora- which forms on pipes and tanks of all would have to go a long way to get tory) in The Scotsman (6 June). These oil-processing facilities. The scale is to 'our' nearest ridge, unlike the articles make the point that hydro- contaminated by heavy metals Americans, who only have a short thermal vents mainly (but not exclu- (notably cadmium, mercury, zinc, way to go to theirs, from the US west sively) on mid-ocean ridges pump out lead, nickel and copper) and radio- coast). metals in annual quantities that are active isotopes (including thorium- orders of magnitude greater than what I'm still uneasy, though. I cannot 232, radium-226, lead-21 0 and is reported to be on Brent Spar. A few help wondering why we keep on polonium-21 0). These occur natu- hundred (or even several thousand) inventing technological fixes like rally in petroleum-bearing formations kilograms of heavy metals leaking this. Shouldn't we be trying to stop (i.e. in the oil itself as well as in from a dumped platform are hardly producing so much waste, instead of sediments and associated brines), likely to make much difference to loolting for new places to dump it? and they tend to become concen- deep-sea ecosystems. Added to (Including deep-sea trenches again - trated in the scale. However, metal which, the structure itself could did anyone spot the 'deliberate concentrations in the scale are not provide an artificial 'deep-sea reef' mistake' in that item? See below for particularly high, and the radioactiv- environment for fish and benthos, just the answer.) Anyway, as Nisbet and ity is such that this would be classi- Fowler point out in their Nature fied as low-level waste by the nuclear as sunken ships do. However, to suggest that 'the bacteria on the sea article (29 June), a more fundamental industry. floor would have greeted the arrival and pressing environmental problem Shell's argument was that as all these of Brent Spar as if all their Christ- is overfishing, especially in the wastes are present1y contained within mases had come together', as the North Atlantic. Perhaps Greenpeace the structure they would leak into the Nature editorial put it, is flagrant could be persuaded to focus on that, marine environment only slowly. hyperbole. Marine bacteria are when they have finished their (this Moreover, as stressed by Tony Rice indeed capable of digesting petro- time praiseworthy) attempts to stop and others, the northern end of the leum, but they aren't really interested nuclear weapons testing in the Feni Drift is very near the cold in heavy metals except as sulphides Pacific. outflow of North Eeast Atlantic Deep (though the physiology of other Water from the Norwegian Sea. The organisms requires them to take up water would take hundreds of years trace amounts of certain metals) - and .o8e s~eaA to return to the surface, by which versatile though they are, even oz awos (aJnjeN u! osle) uo!lsaBBns time, anything leaking slowly out of bacteria can't really cope with awes ayl apew spue~jw!l ley) Ile3a.i the rig would be still further diluted. radioactive isotopes. Aew sa!Jowaw Buol yl!~sJapea8 .Mau lou s! eap! s!yl 'Alleluap!3ul js.ieah It must be stressed, however, that the All the same, these articles do help to 00s U! LU SZ hlu0 aAOW plnOM 8!~ support of these independent scien- swing the debate back in favour of ayl JeaA lad w3 s 40 juawaAow aleld tists for the deep-sea disposal option using the deep oceans for disposal of aBe~a~eue Bu!urnsse - ,,alluew ayl olu! is for this case only. It is not an at least some industrial wastes. In pa!~.ie3aq,, 01 ayl ~oj's.ieaA 00s lou automatic endorsement of the policy this case they suggest that the best 'a~ow.io s.ieah 000 0s aqel plno~11 for other installations. sites might be not on abyssal plains ('80z'd 'hln( oz 'a~nle~aas) AaMsuy In the middle of all the fuss over the and other aliens. The whole business government was oversimplistic, Brent Spar (see the previous item), I has cost two hundred thousand claiming that "for the wellbeing of the have been putting together my pounds; and in return for this sum we nation ... it is Government's responsi- contribution to the Challenger Legacy have got one lumbering volume of bility to work with industry to supply Symposium, held in Southampton statistics, and a complete set of those essentials that industry alone is squabbles which are going on briskly from 1 7 to 19 September this year, to unable to supply". He accepted that wherever two or three philosophers mark the opening of the new although some of the types of projects are gathered together. I believe the Southampton Oceanography Centre. he was thinking of might be tackled by expedition discovered one new industry anyway, "they would be My almost impossible brief has been species of shrimp, but I am not quite tackled at a time and at a speed dic- to'kick off the symposium with some- sure. tated by the purely economic criteria thing newish about the Challenger The second series of oieces is from a of commercial organisations: in other Expedition itself. I will probably fail. controversy that took' place almost words, market forces." (Where have I But in scratching about for inspiration 100 years later. As Scientists and the heard that phrase more recently?) I have come across a few published Sea appeared, the technical journal pieces that illustrate, yet again, the What was needed, thought Barton, Hydrospace (now metamorphosed was for the Government to identify a truth of the old - and rather distress- through several intermediate exist- ing - adage that nothing changes very number of major oceanic projects ences into Offshore), was carrying a which it intended to support, so that much. Since they are particularly lively series of exchanges about industry could develop, and eventu- relelvant to the situation of IOS with where British marine science and ally market, some of the required respect to Brent Spar (see pp.4-5), technology should be going, and the technology. He suggested a way and of NERC with respect to industry government's role, if any, in determin- forward, including the immediate in general, it seemed appropriate to ing this. It had begun in the April share them with you now. scrapping of CMT and its replacement 1971 issue of Hydrospace in which by a Commission of Enquiry headed The first is a contemporary well- the editor, Robert Barton, had written by someone "capable of making and written and well-informed, but highly an item under the title "CMT is Three implementing forthright and bold critical assessment of the Challenger Years Old". decisions", and proposed a number of Expedition, prompted by the appear- The Committee on Marine Technol- possible general areas for the major ance of the first volume of the official ogy had been established under the projects. reports in 1880. The cutting was Wilson Government in 1968 with Some of these, such as fisheries and among the papers of P.H. Carpenter, representatives from the DTI, the fish farming, have a somewhat hollow but without attribution, and was MOD (Navy) and NERC. Its terms of ring in the 1990s, but others, includ- reproduced in 1971 in Margaret reference were to review activities in Deacon's superb book Scientists and ing deep sea-bed prospecting, environ- marine technology and to identify mental monitoring and manned the Sea 1650- 1900 where, however, economically promising projects; to submersibles, are as relevant today as she points out that it was not typical stimulate users to define their techno- they were then. Throughout the of the reaction in newspapers such as logical needs; and to recommend document, Barton compared the The Times. Although the extract has technological programmes to meet situation in the UI< unfavourably with been published at least a couple of these needs. The gist of Barton's that in other nations, particularly the times since, it is so interesting that I article was that the CMT had so far repeat it here: US, France, Germany and Japan. done nothing" worthwhile and that it The first volume recording the was about time it announced imagi- Barton's editorial apparently caused adventures of the Challenger yachting native plans for the future, compara- something of a stir. As a result, in the trip is now out, and the other fifty- ble with those existing in France December 1971 issue of Hydrospace nine volumes will be ready in less under the guidance of CNEXO. he published the Challenger criticism than a century. Everybody knows that that he had just seen in Margaret The August 1971 issue of Hydrospace Mr. Lowe sent a man-of-war away Deacon's book, so that "Those who laden with Professors, and that these carried a response from a 'Business- felt the lash can perhaps take comfort learned individuals amused them- man' pointing out that there had been from the fact that criticism of British selves for four years. They played a recent change of Government and marine technology is by no means new." with thermometers, they fished at all that the policy of the Heath adminis- He might equally have referred to an depths from two feet to three miles; tration had been clearly defined - "to they brought up bucketfuls of stuff allow industry to decide what is editorial article published in Nature in from the deep sea bottom; and they worth doing, and then let industry get June 1872, almost exactly 100 years all pottered about and imagined they on with it". The 'Businessman' before his own and which I have just were furthering the grand Cause of thought this was the correct policy come across anew after many years. Science. Then the tons of rubbish and guessed (and clearly hoped) "that Headed 'The tides and the Treasury' it were brought home, and the genius we shall probably never hear from it addressed the general question of who bossed the excursion proceeded [the CMT] again". government support for marine to employ a swarm of foreigners to science, and had been prompted by a write monographs on the specimens. Barton's reply was a long editorial recent exchange between the British There were plenty of good scientific spelling out in more detail his criti- Association and the Treasury (of men in England, but the true philoso- cism of CMT and its associated Gladstone's first Liberal administration pher is nothing if not cosmopolitan; Marine Technology Support Unit of 1868-74) on the subject of tidal so the tax-payers' money was em- (MATSU). First, he suggested that research. ployed in feeding a mob of Germans 'Businessman's' view of the role of The BA had for some years been properly devolve on the State, so long I leave it to you, dear reader, to draw undertaking tidal observation, analysis will a Government, destitute, like any parallels with present-day and prediction supported by tiny ours, of a particle of the scientific Government White Papers or the amounts of money from the Associa- element, neglect its legitimate duties. arrangements for major new oceano- tion's own very restricted coffers. We therefore strongly counsel the graphic laboratories. But I will draw Encouraged by the results, particularly British Association, at their next your attention to one aspect of in view of their importance to a meeting, to take measures for classify- science funding of which Brent Spar largely maritime economy, in Novem- ing science under the two great heads has made me acutely aware. Through- ber 1871 the Council had resolved to of Public and Private, to supply the out the affair, and in the face of apply to the Treasury for financial Government with a full statement of contrary views, including inuendos all comprehended under the first support to continue the work. Ac- by Private Eye, IOS Deacon Labora- head, and to refuse a single penny of cordingly, in May 1872 they asked for tory and NERC have claimed inde- its funds to any object not distinctly the princely sum of f 150 (about f 1OK pendence of both the oil industry appertaining to the second. This will (Shell in particular) and the Govern- now) to supplement the f600 already bring on a crisis - and we want a ment. This status seems to suit both provided by the BA "to secure the crisis. continuance of the investigation". organisations and, I suspect, is As to the Government, what can we grudgingly respected by Greenpeace. The reply to this memorial (wrote the say? Poor Mr. Law's letter speaks But how are we to retain it? Although Nature author) is such that, unless volumes. It [the Government] plain- we continue to receive some govern- printed in extenso, many persons tively confesses its total inability to ment funding via the science iote, as would, we feel certain, refuse to grasp any State scientific problem lest with all government research labora- believe that such a document could it should have to deal with all. We have been issued with the sanction of tories, this source of finance has have no heart to spurn a prostrate declined significantly in recent years; a civilised Government. We therefore form so lowly and humble; but can we in our case, we get less than half our now append it:- not raise it? Can we not introduce fundine bv this route. The shortfall into our Administration a source of " 1 "Treasury Chambers, June 3, 1872 has to be obtained from other sources knowledge on which they can rely to - government departments, the Sir, - The Chancellor of the Exchequer guide them in the choice of scientific has referred to the Lords Commission- objects really profitable to the nation, EU-ropeanUnion, industry or virtually ers of Her Majesty's Treasury the and officials able to insure a proper anyone else who will pay. But if, in memorial of the British Association for system for the attainment of such this particular case, we had been the Advancement of Science for- objects?" successful in obtaining a contract warded to him with your letter of the from, say, Shell, to carry out a pre- 21st ult., praying for Government Though he must have been fully aware disposal survey or post-disposal assistance in connection with tidal of it, the Nature author does not monitoring, who would still believe observations. mention the fact that only two months that we were truly independent, no I am to state that their Lordships have earlier, in April 1872, the Government matter what the contract might say given their anxious attention to the had given its final approval for the about putting the results in the public memorial, and that they are fully Challenger Expedition, including a domain? If we don't try to get our sensible of the interesting nature of commitment to an expenditure of hands on such contracts, and the such investigations; but that they feel some thousands of pounds in addition Government continues to be so that if they acceded to this request it to the normal naval expenditure of parsimonious, how will we survive? would be impossible to refuse to keeping the ship in commission. And if we don't survive, to whom will contribute towards the numerous Margaret Deacon suggested (Scientists the Government, or anyone else, turn other objects which men of eminence and the Sea, p.334) that the difference for a truly independent, but properly may desire to treat scientifically. between the two situations was that informed, opinion. I don't have any Their Lordships must, therefore, while the Challenger Expedition was a answer, except to suggest some form though with regret, decline to make a 'one-off', involvement in tide research of levy on the offshore oil industry to promise of assistance towards the might result in a long-term commitment. be used to fund deep-sea research, present object out of public funds. but not under the control of the In the event, the total cost of the I am, Sir, your obedient servant, industry. I can see all sorts of prob- Challenger venture, including the William Law" lems with this solution, but the ~ublicationof the results over more problem needs urgent attention. than twenty years, turned out to be Resisting, but not very successfully, relatively enormous, estimated at As the Nature editorial said in 1872, the temptation to treat this response close to f 200K then and equivalent to 'Can we not introduce into our with sarcastic indignation, the Nature well over f 10 millions now. Perhaps Administration a source of knowledge editorial goes on to broaden the issue Gladstone's Liberal administration. on which they can rely to guide them to address what they describe as "the which authorised it, failed to apprkci- in the choice of scientific objects great question which England must ate this financial commitment. Or really profitable to the nation, and soon solve": perhaps they assumed that any future officials able to insure a proper "What is the scientific worlc which the unforeseen costs would have to be system for the attainment of such Government is bound to perform for borne by a future administration. As it objects?' the benefit of the community at large; happened, Disraeli's Tory Government and what is the scientific work which was elected in 1874 while the Chal- Tony (14.1.) Rice cannot be performed by State agency lenger was still away, to be replaced Institute of Oceanographic Sciences so well as by private enterprise? by Gladstone's Liberals once more in Deacon Laboratory So long as individuals, and bodies of 1880 -just as the costs of publication individuals attempt to do what should must have been building up nicely! Until a few months ago I understood Even if it gets caught there is a good tens of generations they are having to what it meant if a species was said to chance that a rare species will not be colonise a new vent as the flow of be rare: now I am not so sure. On recognised. A very large species, like their present system is stemmed. the Megamouth shark, bill' be no- charlei Darwin cruise 72 we caught a Another deep-sea benthic example of ticed, but a single specimen of a rare striking isopod which I happened to rarity expressed as very scattered copepod in amongst several tens or photograph and whose picture patches of abundant animals, is seen even hundreds of thousands of others, subsequently appeared on the cover in the highly localised aggregations of is very likely to remain unobserved. If of NERC News in October 1993. It the sponge Pheronema, found by Tony the sample is collected as part of a turned out to be a specimen of Rice and his colleagues in the programme to study processes, as Xenuraega ptilocera - only the Porcupine Seabight to the south-west most are nowadays, then only the seventh ever caught. Most people of Ireland (see also pp.16-17 of this dominant species will be identified. would agree that it is rare, but is it issue). Not only are the sponges Even if it is part of an ecological or merely rare in collections, or is it distributionally 'rare', but they also distributional study, only a fraction of really rare in nature? If it is really play host to several other species, the sample is likely to be analysed, rare, is it because it is a species that including a spider crab and some because of time and resource con- is on the road down to ? Or ophiuroids, whose life-styles seem to straints. Even if it happens to be in because it is on the way up from be totally dependent on the sponges, the fraction analysed, then as a single speciation? Or is a characteristic of and so these associates are similarly oddity it is most likely to get con- its that it has to be rare? 'rare'. signed to an unidentified category, It might be argued that because it has unless that even rarer animal, the In the pelagic environments of the been caught so infrequently, it is rare. experienced taxonomist, happens to open ocean, currents and turbulent But how much of the volume of the be around. Luckily these rare species mixing result in all species having ocean has ever actually been scien- do tend to be aggregated in areas relatively broad ranges, so rarity in tifically observed, i.e. has been where sorting and identification of these circumstances is expressed in filtered through a net, so that the species is going on! My own exper- another form by species being very presence of this species might be tise in the taxonomy of halocyprid wide-ranging yet always in very low detected? Throughout the history of ostracods is now unique in the world abundances. On land, these are often maybe - not a boast but a sad comment on species which are well on their way to 200 km3 or so have passed through the way biology is being subverted extinction: they are losing the battle scientists' nets. At IOS, our largest away from taxonomy, that area of for survival, either because they are sampler, the RMT 8, filters about study which is fundamental to all facing competition from other species, 25 000m3 per hour of fishing at our other biological and multidisciplinary or because climate is changing their normal towing speed of 2 Iknots. So research. habitats faster than they can adapt. to filter just one km3 takes 400 hours of fishing, which is about what we In terrestrial environments, many rare However, many species cannot help achieve in three research cruises! soecies have verv restricted distribu- but be rare, because of the ecological tional ranges, and yet within those niche they occupy. There are top During the nearly 30 years I have ranges they may be quite abundant. predators which have to range over worked on oceanography at IOS, we The inhabitants of oceanic islands are immense areas to find enough food. have probably filtered less than an obvious example, and the dynam- There can only be a few hundred lions 10 km3, and most of this effort has ics of selection associated with native on the whole of the Serengeti Plains probably been outside the isopod's (endemic) species on islands is very because of the limited carrying distributional range. Although the readably described in Weiner's recent capacity of that ecosystem to support total range of the species may extend book on the finches of Galhpagos (see a lion population. So, in this sense, through quite a small percentage the Further Reading). For many of these the great white shark has always been ocean's total volume of about 1 368 island species, straying off the island rare and will always remain so. million km3, its habitat may be in means certain death, and so many Likewise, the physiological demands excess of a million km3 so that its lose their ability to disperse - birds of large whales may limit the maxi- global population may be far larger and insects tend to lose their ability mum size of their populations, so that than some terrestrial animals with to fly. In the oceans, similar island despite their immense size and more restricted distributions which situations occur associated with life tendency to form obvious are considered to be quite common! on the sea-bed in the vicinity of aggregations, ecologically they have Even within its range, like nearly all and cold seep always been rare. However, such pelagic species it probably has a very systems, and on the tops of guyots. large animals will almost certainly patchy spatial distribution, perhaps in Guyots, in terms of evolutionary have a substantial top-down influence time as well, increasing the chances time-scales, are permanent features, on the ecology of the habitats they of not catching it! So can we really so may well be directly analogous occupy. Consequently, the fact that claim that this species is rare? The with islands above the water. Hydro- they are rare does not necessarily chances of catching a truly rare thermal vents are ephemeral, and the mean that their continuing survival is pelagic species in the deep ocean initial hypothesis that vent inhabitants a side-issue with little or no ecological with a population of just a few may have lost their powers of disper- relevance. If this is true of large thousands may be so small that, if sal is being proved wrong. These animals, perhaps it can also be true such a species can persist, then it will species have had to retain their for the smaller, inconspicuous species probably remain unknown to science. dispersive abilities, since every few as well? There are species that have both small floating in the ocean is colonised by Thus the rarity of a species in a ranges and'small populations and ship-worms (Teredo), gribble and collection may be because it is on the these must be the most vulnerable to goose barnacles means such species fringes of its geographical or bathy- sudden changes in their habitat cannot really be described as rare. metric range, or because its seasonal caused by climate change or peak in abundance was missed. Least anthropogenic impact. These are Rarity can be statistical. In a sample likely of all, is that the species truly is often inhabitants of special or extreme or a collection of samples, those rare. I remember the excitement, environments: for example, the relict species which constitute a very small when we were first starting to sample faunas found in caves and lava tubes, proportion of the catch - say contrib- at great depths, of catching a or some of the shallow-living benthic uting <0.1% of the specimens in a specimen of a very strange fish, species found on the summits of collection - are often considered to Monognathus. At that time less than isolated guyots in mid-ocean. be rare. In 1974 we carried out some ten had ever been collected, but now repeated sampling in the North we know that they occur consistently Other species have evolved ploys Atlantic to the north-west of Cape (although never abundantly) in the which rely on rarity to ensure sur- Finisterre (44"N, 13"W), at depths of abyssopelagic pelagic zone at depths vival. These include the species that 100, 250, 450 and 600m - collecting greater than 4000m. Its rarity in pretend to be what they are not - the a total of 96 samples. Howard Roe earlier collections was the result of mimics of distasteful or venomous worked up the calanoid copepods, our inability to sample its remote species which advertise their nasti- and I have re-examined his data habitat. ness with bright colours and blatantly which are held in the IOS Deacon overt displays. If the mimics which Laboratory biological database. At a time when the Biodiversity display the same colours and overt Numerically, over 90% of the catches Convention is focussing attention on behaviour become relatively too in the macroplankton net (RMT 1) the need to conserve species, and common, then the predators never were copepods. Nearly 95% of all the rare species in particular, it behoves really learn to avoid the exhibition- 520 142 copepods identified, be- us to understand rarity (real or ists, and both mimic and mimicked longed to just three species, so the apparent) more clearly. Is the appar- get eaten. samples showed low diversity in ent rarity of a species just a sampling artefact? Is the species rare because There are also the species that exploit terms of dominance. noth he; 15 of its ecology? Or is it a new emerg- ephemeral habitats. In terrestrial species each contributed between 0.1 ing species, or one well down the environments, so much of what we and 1% to the total (making up road to extinction? Perhaps most see around us is highly disturbed by another 4.1 1 %), 35 species each importantly, do the vast majority of human activity so that the commonest contributed 0.1 to 0.01 % (another species that never appear to be species are the opportunistic and 0.85%), and the remaining 53 species abundant play any sort of ecological normally ephemeral weeds that only each contributed 4.01 % (the re- role? Should we really put so much proliferate wherever there is a distur- maining 0.06%). There were 23 effort into the conservation of rare bance. However, when Fred Grassle species-represented by < 4 specimens. species, or should we be more first carried out recolonisation experi- These were rare in the samples, but concerned about those species that ments on the deep sea bed, the first are they really rare in the ocean? are dominant in driving ecological animals to arrive in vast numbers For some of the species, the bathy- processes? were species of polychaete worm metric range covered by the samples which proved to be new to science. was recognisably unrepresentative. Martin Angel Even in the open ocean our activities Others may have been expatriates; for IOS Deacon Laboratory have favoured substantial increases in example the three specimens of some of these inhabitants of ephem- Calanus finmarchicus were clearly at eral habitats. Goose barnacles must the southernmost margin of the Further Reading have become far more abundant over species' geographical range. Sixteen Gaston, K. (1994) Rarity, Chapman the last few centuries because the of the species are known from off the and Hall. amounts of floating flotsam and , and six of these also Weiner, J. (1 994) The Beak of the jetsam have increased substantially occur in the Mediterranean. There Finch: Evolution in Real Time, since ocean voyaging became com- are just four candidates for true rarity, Jonathan Cape. monplace. Similarly, even rarer but only an indeterminate species of natural substrata will have increased Arietellus seems finally to qualify. in frequency, like logs either found Even so, the majority of known floating or waterlogged on the sea- oceanic species never appear to floor, which are almost without occur abundantly. So what contribu- exception being consumed by wood- tion are they making to the ecology of boring- molluscs and amwhiwods. the oceans? Should we care about " I I Carcasses of large fish and whales are whether they survive or not? How do consumed by hosts of scavenging they manage to persist in the face of amphipods which seldom get col- apparently overwhelming competition lected in nets and trawls. Despite from the dominant species? I have no such habitats being extremely infre- answers to such questions, and that quent, the rapidity with which a log worries me. The name of Ray (R.J.H.) Beverton is supervising student field courses at famous to fisheries biologists all over the university's field centre near the the world, but his administrative and River Wye. His many other activities teaching abilities were evidently as now included editing a journal of considerable as his scientific talents. marine science and advising foreign He came to fisheries biology almost organisations on matters such as by accident, his scientific education conservation of minke whales and having been interrupted (like that of develoament of fish stocks in Lake many others) by the outbreak of ~alawi,as well as serving on numer- World War II. At that time he had ous committees. Thus, he was just completed Part I of his Natural chairman of the management commit- Sciences Tripos at Downing College, tee of Millport Research Station, head Cambridge, and he became a 'boffin' of the British delegation to the IOC, in the Operational Research branch chairman of the Natural Sciences of the Services, where - among other Advisory Committee of UNESCO, things - he worked on the develop- president of the Fisheries Society of ment of polystyrene and latex for the British Isles, and a trustee of the coaxial cables used in radar systems. WWF. In 1945, he was persuaded to spend a In 1984 he became Professor of Fisheries Ecology, head of the Depart- year with the Government Fisheries sickness than his colleague and had ment of Applied Biology in 1987, and Laboratory at Lowestoft, allegedly to to resign after a few years). The result in 1988 (after the merger of UWIST "do something practically useful" of their researches was the publica- with University College, Cardiff), he before resuming his academic career tion in 1957 of a classic work of was appointed to head the School of - a curious perception, if true, of ecological literature: On the Dynam- Pure and Applied Biology at the someone who had just spent five ics of Exploited Fish Populations, newly created University of Wales years on what could justifiably be widely held to be the most cited work College of Cardiff. This post involved considered very "practically useful" of all time in fisheries research. integrating four separate departments research! Be that as it may, Beverton Despite this acclaim, it seems that and establishing new degree schemes was immediately sent to the on Beverton's conclusions have since and research groups. He retired a commercial trawler to help in the been all too frequently ignored, again in 1989, at the age of 67, but design of a new fisheries research through political indifference and in went on delivering lectures and vessel (the Ernest Holt). It seems he the interests of short-term expediency. keynote addresses throughout the was a poor sailor, suffering so badly Plus Fa change. from sea-sickness that he felt obliged world, and published several more to write no less than three letters of He left the Fisheries Laboratory in research papers, deemed by many to resignation. Fortunately, none of 1965 (by which time he had become be as important as any he had them was ever posted, because it was its Deputy Director*), and took on a produced in the preceding 40 years. during this period that he had begun new challenge: helping to set up He continued to enjoy fishing and to formulate his ideas on the exploita- NERC, as its first Secretary. This task sailing, and playing and listening to tion of fish stocks. He now (1946) involved bringing together institutions music, though deafness in his later returned to Cambridge, completing as diverse as the Nature Conservancy, years somewhat dulled his apprecia- Part II of his Tripos with the top First the Geological Survey, the British tion. of his year, winning the Smart Prize Survey, the National Ray Beverton was a courteous and for Zoology in the process, as well as lnstitute of Oceanography, and the gentle man, who was very supportive gaining a Blue for soccer. Being, in laboratories of the Development of the Challenger Society in general Commission. As NERC's executive addition, a lover of music, he was and Ocean Challenge in particular, also an accomplished pianist. head, he subsequently supervised the both during as well as after his time move of the headquarter's offices as President of the Society (1990-92), He went back to Lowestoft after from London to Swindon. During this and he will be sadly missed. Mem- graduating, and was joined by S.J. period he was appointed CBE (1968) bers' sympathies are extended to his (Sydney) Holt, both of them having and elected FRS (1 975). been recruited as biologists with a wife, Kathy, and his three daughters. knowledge of mathematics. Together Resigning from NERC in 1980, he thev develooed Beverton's earlv ideas held part-time teaching and research on ;he dyna'mics of fish popula;ions, posts at Bristol and Southampton, and * Additional details of Beverton's career and saent several aeriods at sea, in 1983 became honorary professorial at MAFF can be found in A.J. (Arthur) studying plaice, cAd and other ' fellow at the University of Wales Lee's book, The Directorate of Fisheries commercial species (unfortunately, lnstitute of Science and Technology Reaearch: Its Origins and Development, Holt suffered even more from sea- (UWIST), where he much enjoyed published by MAFF in 1992. "Goldrush Be ins With respect to polymetallic sulphide Potential Mineral Wealth deposits formed in hydrothermal Beneath the &aves' systems associated with sea-floor from the O~eaas(Review) I wonder how many readers of these volcanism, the article says "deposits As the depletion of land-based columns view the idea of deep-ocean gathered around sea volcanoes may mineral resources continues apace, mining with unalloyed enthusiasm be mined by drilling vertically down there is growing interest in the and optimism. The mineral potential through the flanks of the volcano and deposits, now becoming increasingly of the deep oceans is attracting more then tunnelling outwards towards the well documented, on the ocean media attention nowadays, some of it deposits" (cf, the following review). floors. Recent discoveries in the very bullish, promoted in part by Where mineral deposits (nodules or equatorial Atlantic, described in the recent publications such as the sulphides) lie in international waters last issue of Ocean Challenge (pp. Marine Technology Directorate review (beneath the high ) it may be 16-1 7), are just one example. described below, and by discoveries presumed that the International Sea- Long-term research in Imperial such as those reported in the last issue Bed Authority will exert pressure College's Marine Minerals Resources of Ocean Challenge (Vol. 5, No.2, pp. (under the Law of the Sea) on mining 16-1 7). consortia to operate with minimal Programme, under the direction of Dr damage to the marine environment. David Cronan, is helping to define The headline above came from a two- Nations with deep-sea deposits within the most promising areas for exploita- page spread in the Daily Telegraph their exclusive economic zones, tion for the metals cobalt, copper and (March 26), which highlighted phrases however, may be less squeamish and nickel. Results of this research are like "... marine mineral riches open could see immediate economic gain summarised in a 20-page illustrated up a world of opportunities" and "An as being more important that protec- booklet Evaluation of Marine Miner- undersea mineral 'mine' is growing at tion of marine ecosystems. als in EEZs.* The booklet concen- a rate of 10 million tonnes a year," trates on two types of marine mineral "Oceans might literally be gold mines this last being a specific reference to deposit, manganese nodules and (each cubic mile containing dissolved manganese nodules. There are polymetallic sulphides deposited by gold worth about f 10000) ...I. Not estimated to be of the order of hydrothermal activity. Manganese really. That's about 2 kilograms of tonnes of nodules on the deep Pacific nodules consist mainly of iron and gold in 6 I

T-shirts Good quality, with a large logo across the front. Either navy blue with a white daylight left, or so we thought. The logo orwhite with a navy pub turned out to be not so local, logo. Sizes: SM (to fit 32-34" chest); MD (34-36"); LG (38- 40"); XL (40-42"); and XXL

logo only): ages 2-4, 6-8, 10-1 2 and 14-1 6 years (to fit sizes 18-20", 22-24, 24-26", 26-28", 28-30": f4. Sweatshirts In navy or red with white logo, full chest logo or discreet badge logo on left breast. Sizes: SM (to fit 32-34" chest); MD (38-40"); the pier. It was quite an adventure. LG (40-42"); and XL (44- Indeed, the whole trip was an adven- 46"): f 12. Children's sizes height, it felt better to watch the Postage: f 1 per order. horizon now and then, to help get Harrington Professor of Marine some 'sea legs'. Sciences, University of Delaware Send your order, clearly stating size, colour etc. to: The exotic nature of the trip only increased as my American ears Professor Garvine has been on strained to absorb the speech of the sabbatical leave as the Sir Kirby Lang

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DIVING INTO PEACE: THE RED SEA EXPERIENCE Eilat / Taba / Sharem El Sheikh /Aqaba

March 1996 will see a spectacular international diving event in the Red Sea. This festival, in combination with the Diving Medicine Symposium, will be the largest of its kind ever to take place in the Middle East. The Diving into Peace initiative is intended to kindle alliances between all who care about the sea. In coordinating a comprehen- sive programme of diving events with specialist divers, the objective will be to improve diving education aware- ness, elevate safety standards and bring divers together for the ultimate underwater experience.

DIVING INTO PEACE FESTIVAL Presentations by prominent figures in International Diving covering: , Spectacular Dive Sites in the Red Sea area; Marine Archaeology 0 Seminars on diving specialities: First-Aid and Rescue; Underwater Photogra- phy; Wreck Dives; Marine Biology * Advanced Training Programmes by International Diving Organizations Day and night dives, live-aboard cruises etc. e Exhibition of diving and underwater equipment 0 Dive Medicine, First Aid, Travel * Photography Competition Artefacts from the deep.

RED SEA DIVING -THE MEDICAL AND PHYSIOLOGICAL ASPECTS Symposium to be chaired by Dr. K Melamed (former Director, Naval Medical Institute) Israel, and Dr. A. Taher (Director, Hyperbaric Chamber, Sharem El Sheikh), Egypt.

Problems of diving with compressed air 4 Effects of nitrogen narcosis when diving in the Red Sea *The general versus Red Sea specific: decompression deep-sea diving with compressed air 0 Use of oxygen-enriched breathing

ICAL MEDIA Ltd. 9 Maskit St. POB 2097 Herzlia Pituach 46120 Israel very first serious deep-sea biologist, sunlit surface waters. Shallow-water Edward Forbes (1 81 5-1 854) (see caves may also be totally dark and Ocean Challenge, Vo1.5, NO.^), therefore not support plant growth, wasn't yet a twinkle in his grandfa- including phytoplankton, but here ther's eye! In any case, almost a the resemblance to the deep sea a century later, when Forbes eventu- usually ends. For animals living in There's ally carried out his classic series of such caves are subjected to much dredgings in the Aegean in the lower pressures than their deep sea 1840s, he concluded that the counterparts and, probably much dramatic decrease in animal abun- more importantly, to much higher, or dance which he encountered with at least much more variable, water increasing depth pointed to a deep temperatures. Consequently, ocean totally devoid of life. This although some normally deep-living would have confirmed the view, species have been found in shallow held more or less intuitively by caves, these occurrences are rare Full many a gem .. . anyone who gave the matter a and are usually restricted to fairly second thought since Gray's time mobile animals tolerant of a rather Thomas Gray's Elegy, 'wrote' (in the and before. Poor old Edward was wide range of conditions. original) in a Country Churchyard, is fooled by the fact that he had been surely one of the most beautiful Two features of the Mediterranean working in a sea where, although poems in the English language. My cave situation combine to make this animals do occur in the very deepest woefully late introduction to it came a very special case. First, the whole regions, the depth-related decrease when, as a student in 1956, 1 read of the Mediterranean has a curious is much more abrupt than in most Alister Hardy's then newly published temperature structure, the deeper other areas. Nevertheless, the New Naturalist volume on The Open parts hovering around 13 "C even resulting so-called 'azoic theory' of Sea - the world of plankton, sti I I the down to 4 000 m or more. Second, the deep ocean held sway for almost best general plankton text ever this particular cave, near La Ciotat 30 years until the 1870s when the written. Hardy himself wrote beauti- on the French coast, slopes down- cruises of the Lightning, Porcupine fully, and in one passage his child- wards from its entrance whereas and Challenger dispelled it. like wonder at the DrosDect of totally most Mediterranean caves slo~e , r unknown organisms being brought to Apart from the recently discovered upwards. Because of this pecbliar- the surface in oceanic plankton nets hydrothermal vent communities, ity, during the winter storms the reminded him of one of Gray's most most of the wide variety of animals shallow (about 15 m deep) 'sill' of emotive couplets: that we now know inhabit the deep the La Ciotat cave traps cold water ocean are adapted for life at very Full many a gem of purest ray serene low, and remarkably constant, The dark unfathom'd caves temperatures. For the vast majority The hexactinellid sponge Pheronema of ocean bear of the oceans are extremely cold, carpenteri photographed at a depth of less than 4°C at depths below 1000 m about 1200m in the Porcupine Seabight Years later, when I also shared the or so, even in tropical regions. The to the south-west of Ireland. excitement of the arrival on deck of deep oceans are also, of course, Pheronema has the same basic form as nets from thousands of metres perpetually pitch black apart from Oopsacas described opposite, but is beneath the ship's keel, I too was much larger (the size of a big grapefruit) the odd flashes of bioluminescence. struck by the aptness of Gray's words. and is anchored into the soft mud by So the communities living there are Consequently, I used them many long silica 'roots'. Here it is accompa- times to introduce talks on deep sea dependent for their existence on nied by the squat lobster, Munida food imported from the overlying biology to a wide range of audiences. tenuimana. But ne;er did anyonepoint out to me that I was consistently misquoting the poem. For until no more than three or four years ago I had conveniently mis-remembered the quotation, substituting the (from my point of view) more appropriate "depths" for Gray's "caves". I was reminded of this boob by a short article in a recent issue of Deep-Sea Research by three French biologists reporting the animal life in a recently discovered 120 m long submarine Mediterranean cave (see Vacelet et a/., 1994). Gray's "gem" referred, of course, to minera- logical rather than biological treas- ures, for when the Elegy was pub- lished in 1751 the possibility of life existing in the deep ocean probably never occurred to him or to anyone else. Even the depth of the ocean was still a total mystery, while the which then undergo an extremely explains why it has been collected so small seasonal temperature variation rarely before. between 13 and 14.5 "C. So the cave discovery is interesting It was, perhaps, therefore not too for at least two reasons. First. there surprising that Jean Vacelet and his may be other so far undiscovkred co-workers found that the cave caves, similar to the one near La harbours an unusual abundance of Ciotat, harbouring other deep sea animals not normally met with in 'gems' that are difficult, if not impos- caves exposed to the normal tempera- sible, to collect from their 'normal' ture range of the surrounding surface habitat. Second, such caves provide waters. These included foramini- an opportunity to study the in situ ferans, ostracods, arrow-worms and behaviour of these species and to Legibility in Lecture Theatres lamp-shells, either previously collect fresh and undamaged material In the last issue of Ocean Challenge undescribed or known only from for histological and physiological we remarked on the great improve- much deeper waters. But the most analysis, almost never possible on ments in standard of presentation of remarkable cave inhabitant was a specimens subjected to the ravages of papers at UK Oceanography 94, representative of an almost exclu- deep sea trawls and the long ascent to relative to that experienced two years sively deep-sea group, the hexac- the surface. earlier (Vol. 3, no. 213, p. 23). Here is tinellid sponges. But I am pleased for a much more a further helpful snippet to guide presenters to future meetings, wher- Also known as 'glass sponges' personal reason. Ignoring the disci- because their supporting skeleton is plinary switch from mineralogy to ever held. made up of needle-like spicules of biology, I feel that I can continue to One of the criteria essential to good pure silica, the hexactinellids include use Gray's words for my original presentation is legibility of overheads the Venus' Flower Basket whose purpose, but now quoted correctly. and slides. To be sure, 'information beautiful and intricate skeleton, Biological gems are to be found in density' is part of this problem, and cleaned of all traces of the sponge's both dark unfathom'd caves and the extent to which slides are per- living tissue, is displayed in many depths and sometimes they are ceived to be overcrowded with museums around the world. Although identical! I am sure Thomas Gray information is to some extent subjec- a few hexactinellids have been found would be delighted. In fact, dare I tive. But difficult decisions about how at relatively shallow depths, these suggest that if he had known then much to put on an overhead can to records are restricted to cold-water what we know now he might have some extent be alleviated by bearing regions on the Antarctic continental used "depths" in the first place! in mind the following rule of thumb: shelf and off British Columbia and For someone 15 m from the front of a New Zealand. The discovery of Tony (A.L.) Rice lecture theatre (which is fairly normal dense populations of glass sponges in IOS Deacon Laboratory size), the height of lettering on the the La Ciotat cave, as many as 100 screen should be not less than about 9 individuals per square metre on the Reference cm (90mm) for normal reading walls and roof, was therefore very Vacelet, J., Boury-Esnault, N. and standard. This in turn means that exciting. They all apparently belong Harmelin, J-G. (1994) Hexac- lettering on the overhead transparency to a single species, Oopsacas minuta, tinellid cave, a unique deep-sea itself should be about 7 mm high, a rather small form consisting of habitat in the scuba zone. Deep- assuming a normal projector-screen fragile white urn-like bodies, up to Sea Research, 41, 965-73. distance of a couple of metres or so. only about 6cm long, attached loosely to the rocky substrate. Prior Post Script Mathematically gifted readers keen to to its discovery in the cave, the pursue this matter in more detail are Since this article was written, Vacelet species was known only from two referred to Nature, 370, p.423 (11 and Boury-Esnault have published an minute specimens collected at a August, 1994). account of an even more remarkable depth of 924m at the Mediterranean sponge find from the same cave end of the Straits of . This (Nature, 373, 333-35, 1995). This locality is exposed to the outflow of sponge is an undescribed species of the western Mediterranean Deep Vacancy at SUT the cladorhizid genus (Asbesto- Water at a temperature of 12.8 "C, pluma), which also includes the The position of Executive Secretary very similar to that inside the cave. deepest recorded sponges - from for the Society for Underwater Since the cave seems to have been almost 9000m. But this group is also Technology, based in the Memorial submerged only some 7 000 years remarkable for havine lost the aauif- Building at 76 Mark Lane, London, ago, Vacelet and his colleagues erous canal system typical of filtLr- will become vacant on the retire- suggest that its colonization by feeding sponges, in favour of ment of David Wardle at the end of Oopsacas has been quite recent - specialised carnivory - presumably January 1996. This multi- and from a relatively nearby source, an adaptation to the nutrient-poor disciplinary learned Society brings probably the Cassidaigne Canyon deep-sea environment in which the together individuals and organisa- about 7 km away. They go on to sponges are normally found. As in tions with a common interest in suggest that the species is probably the case of the glass sponge, the underwater technology, ocean widely distributed in the Mediterra- accessibility of the cave populations science and offshore engineering. nean, but that its preferred habitat of provides a unique opportunity to For further details, contact SUT on vertical or even overhanging rock study the morphology and behaviour 01 71 -481 -0750. The closing date faces, normally in rather deep water, of this strange organism. for applications is 17 Nov. 1995. The Admiralty Chart - British Naval Ritchie describes the challenges of form ... existed even at a depth of five Hydrography in the Nineteenth exploration imposed on these miles; and that a vast circulation of Century by Rear Admiral G.S. Ritchie pioneers, and the considerable water took place within the oceans, the (1994). The Pentland Press, 444pp. hardships that they had to face. redistribution of nutrients playing a £ 19.50 (hard cover, ISBN 1-85821- Often confronted with hostile vital role in the massive life cycle of 234-0) natives, operating from small sailing this newly discovered world". The boats working for weeks away from collaboration between the Hydro- Every mariner, whether on a naval their mother ships in waters with graphic Department and oceanogra- warship or a yacht, on a supertanker unknown hazards, undertaking phers has remained strong throughout or on a small fishing trawler, auto- dangerous land expeditions to the present century. matically turns to a chart to find his establish key surveying points on way over the oceans. Charts are the The book is written with authority - local mountains, facing unknown road maps to the seas, delineating the as befits an author who was such a tropical diseases for which no coastlines, giving warning of hazard- distinguished successor to the remedies were known, at times ous shoals, and supplying the neces- nineteenth-century Hydrographers shipwrecked, and without the rapid - sary frameworl< for navigation, as well as with style and humour. communication which we take for whether by celestial observations, Ritchie describes in detail some of the granted today, the expeditions radio methods or satellite. It is easy evolving techniques for surveying, and required, and generated, the highest to take it for granted that charts have relates the newly found features to level of personal leadership and always been available to navigators today's maps. There are charming dedication. and that the role of Hydrographic illustrations from the surveyors' original Offices has been a mundane one in The growth of global trade and the sketches, and maps to help the reader supplying them. Steve Ritchie's book development of the British Empire to follow the narrative. My enjoyment quickly dispels such ideas. created the demand for reliable was considerably enhanced, however, navigational charts on a worldwide by having a modern world atlas in front The book belies its rather uninspiring basis, and the British Admiralty of me to help visualise the details of the title: it describes a century of high explorations. adventure, of considerable danger chart became a symbol of high quality and reliability throughout and hardship and, most important of I recommend this book unreservedly to the world. In the middle of the all, of the utmost dedication of a all who enjoy adventure, who want to small band of surveyors who explored century, the search north of Canada get a feel for the difficulties faced by and surveyed hitherto unknown for a north-west passage to the the early surveyors, and who are coastlines all over the world. This lndies and China, triggered numer- curious about the origins of marine book, which was first published in ous expeditions from both the science and the role played by the UK 1967, has been rewritten in the light Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans and Hydrographic Department during the of new research into the archives of resulted in many dangerous, and - last century. the Hydrographic Office in Taunton, in the case of Franklin - fatal, journeys in ice-packed water, with the assistance of Lieutenant Anthony Laughton sometimes involving enormous Commander Andrew David, formerly Chairman, Joint IOC/IHO Guiding distances over land covered with responsible for the Sailing Directions, Committee for GEBCO, snow and ice. who has also contributed an introduc- formerly Director of the Institute of tory chapter. Towards the end of the nineteenth Oceanographic Sciences, UK By the end of the eighteenth century, century, hydrographers played a key the refinement of the theodolite, the role in the foundation of oceano- development of station pointers and graphy. Increasingly, surveyors hand compasses and, most important, were undertaking scientific work in Sediment Transport and Depositional the invention of an accurate marine addition to charting. The Royal Processes (1 994) edited by Kenneth timekeeper, later to be known as a Society wanted measurements of Pye, Blackwell Scientific Publications, chronometer, enabled surveyors to the magnetic field; governments 397pp. £32 (hard cover, ISBN 0-632- navigate with relative accuracy all wanted to lay cables across the 031 12-3) over the globe. The nineteenth- Atlantic floor and to know the century surveyors exploited these nature of the bottom, currents and There is something in this book for newly available tools to discover and marine life; regular measurements evervone with an interest in sediment to map the unknown coastlines of were being made of water tempera- transport and deposition, whatever Australia, South America and Africa, ture and chemical composition; and their level or background. The book is and of the . The names scientists wanted the answers to wide-ranging, with chapters on fluvial, of the surveyors, who often became questions about the sea on a global lacustrine, aeolian, marine and vol- Hydrographers to the Navy, are scale. The famous expedition of canic clastic processes (amongst familiar to many in the place-names HMS Challenger, mounted by the others). Each is written by an expert in on maps today and have been Hydrographic Department, "brought the field, and most readers, from commemorated in the names of ships to an interested world the know- whatever sedimentary background, will of the surveying fleet - Dalrymple, ledge that the floor of the ocean recognise many of the contributing Vancouver, Flinders, Beaufort, Fitzroy was a complex of abyssal plains authors. The style and content of each (who was captain of the Beagle in carpeted with ooze, divided by chapter seems to have been left to Darwin's expedition) and Wharton, to deeps, rises and even rocky subma- individual authors, resulting in consid- mention just a few. rine ranges; that life in some crude erable variety in format and quality, but the general approach is quantitative Regional Oceanography: an descriptive volume is the forte of the while not mathematical, with emphasis Introduction by Matthias Tomczak book. on the processes underlying the and Stuart Godfrey (1994). Pergamon The following eleven chapters are environmental observations. Press, 422pp. £23 (flexicover, ISBN studies of the world's oceans, 0-08-041 020-0) The variety of content can be judged commencing with the polar oceans from the chapter titles: Properties of and working through the Pacific, This book was developed from under- sediment particles by K. Pye; Funda- Indian and Atlantic Oceans and their graduate lectures in marine science mental properties of fluids and their marginal seas. The descriptions of designed for students majoring in relation to sediment transport by J.R.L. the Antarctic and Arctic oceans are marine geology, biology, chemistry Allen; Hillslope sediment transport each confined to a single chapter and geography, as well as physical and deposition by M.J. Selby; Fluvial whereas the other three have three oceanography. Consequently, the sediment transport and deposition by chapters each. For each ocean there advantage for many students is that I. Reid and L.E. Frostick; Sedimentary is an account of bottom topography, the text does not require a previous processes in lakes by P.G. Sly; Estua- wind and current regime, fresh-water knowledge of mathematics and rine sediment transport and deposition flux and evaaoration. and water theoretical physics. However, a by K.R. Dyer; Beach and nearshore mass charac;eristics,'the text follow- general description of ocean circula- sediment transport by J. Hardisty; ing a similar format for each ocean. tion is of little use in advancing the Deep sea processes of sediment The one thing I found curious was science of oceanography unless it transport and deposition by D.A.V. the order in which the oceans were conveys an understanding of the Stow; Aeolian sediment transport and discussed. Understandably, North physical principles which drive the deposition by R. V. Fisher and U.-U. Atlantic Deep Water is introduced in ocean. In this respect, the authors Schmincke. Chapter 7 on Arctic Oceanography, have tried, in the first five chapters of but Chapter 8 then discusses the With a book containing such diverse the book, to give an introduction to Pacific Ocean and it is not until topics, it is inevitable that many the basic physical principles and their Chapter 14 that the reader returns to readers will find some chapters too consequences, primarily as a refer- the Atlantic Ocean. In view of the simplistic for their needs, while others ence for the remaining fifteen chap- modern idea of the 'oceanic con- ters. will find progress too rapid. This is veyor belt' it would seem more not a book for experts who want to logical to deal with the Atlantic after advance their own speciality but is These first five chapters are particu- the Arctic Ocean, and work through remarkably good for anyone wishing larly informative to the non-specialist. The first chapter introduces the major the Indian to the Pacific - but then to broaden their knowledge of sedi- the Atlantic is on my back door-step ment transport processes. I personally external influences on ocean circula- tion and gives a brief account of air while the Pacific is home waters to found more interest in the contribu- the authors of the text. tions describing areas of sedimentary pressure and wind fields, solar transport and depositional processes radiation and heat flux, and fresh- My first impression of the book was with which I was less familiar, and I water flux and evaporation. The that it was not much different in suspect others will find the value of second concentrates on the basic approach from that of Descriptive this book to lie in the unfamiliar rather temperature, salinity and density Regional Oceanography by Tchernia than the well known. It is a good structure and the consequent oceanic (Pergamon Marine Series, Vol. 3), starting point for new graduate stu- pressure field; the third deals with the even though Tchernia's book is now dents as most chapters contain a Coriolis force, geostrophy, Rossby 15 years old (and out-of-print). wealth of references to guide the waves and western boundary cur- However, the science has moved on, reader onwards. Undergraduates will rents; the fourth with Ekman transport and this new book brings in many of also find much that is useful when and pumping and the Sverdrup the new concepts in physical ocean- reviewing taught material or for balance; and the fifth with water mass ography. In particular, it tries to give alternative perspectives on processes. formation and subduction and the the reader a basic understanding of oceanic heat budget. how ocean circulation is involved in Because I have my own particular climate change. The last three specialisation it would not be appro- Since no science can be done without chapters are related to 'climate priate to pick out any particular mathematics, these chapters do issues', with discussions of 'The chapter for detailed comment. How- a incorporate equations (I hear a oceans and the world's mean ever, I did find the contribution from number of students sigh mournfully) climate', 'El Niiio and the Southern J.R.L. Allen on fluids and sediment but the reader is taken through them Oscillation (ENSO)' and 'The ocean transport a delight to read: it is not sympathetically and certainly no-one e and climate change'. When I had easy to summarise the important fluid should feel daunted by the approach. finished reading, I realised that the processes in relation to sediments in a It is intended to be helpful, and I similarities to the Tchernia volume manner which is clear and interesting think the authors have achieved a were in fact superficial and that the yet free from complex mathematics, happy balance in getting the basic great advantage of this text as a but Allen manages it. I will certainly message across without going into the general introduction to the subject be recommending it as essential more theoretical aspects of physical lay in the first five chapters and the reading to all my students who find oceanography. Yes, there may be last three. my own lectures on the subject less readers who say these five chapters than illuminating! don't go far enough into the theory, I should add that the book is clearly but this is not the intention of the written with a large number of Chris Vincent book as a whole. There are a number figures which are an integral part of School of Environmental Sciences of other texts which describe the the text. To gain the maximum University of East Anglia detailed theory very well but, person- benefit, the reader should spend as ally, I think the inclusion of the five much time looking at the figures as introductory chapters in an otherwise reading the text. Finally, the authors admit in the processes controlling the ocean, the Marine Pollution (3rd edition) by R.B. preface that there were aspects of ocean basins, and ocean life, with Clark (1992). Oxford University physical oceanography that had not new text and new figures. Additions Press, 172pp. f 18.95 (flexicover, got the attention they deserved, and included recent advances in many ISBN 0-1 9-854686-6) (I quote) "Much can be learned about branches of science that contribute to Given the recent furore over the the oceanic circulation and the life our understanding of the Earth and its Brent Spar, it seems appropriate to cycle of the various water masses by oceans. draw readers' attention to a very combining information from CTD and Hmmm, I'm not so sure it works. This readable, well-illustrated and in- current meter data with information 'rewriting' has reduced the length formative book on this topic, packed on oxygen, nutrients and other from 406 large-format pages down to with examples and case studies. chemical tracers. Unfortunately 230 of A5 size, and replaced many marine chemistry has always been attractive two-colour diagrams with I urge anyone interested in protection among the authors' weak points, and less appealing and rather stark black- of the marine environment to get the treatment of chemical tracers in and-white ones; and the colour hold of it, particularly as there seems this book is below acceptable level - plates have gone. The price has to be little evidence of any overall it cannot even be called elementary." stayed the same, though. What's decline in levels of pollution resulting They go on to say that if the book is a more, I get the feeling that 'funda- from human activities, although there success then the first improvement in mentals' have tended to be sacrificed have of course been local improve- a revised edition would be more to 'recent advances', by which it ments - such as decreased discharges detailed coverage of all chemical seems the author means current issues of radioactive wastes from Sellafield tracers. As a tracer chemist, myself, I like the greenhouse effect, El Nifio, to the Irish Sea. The book is suitable find this admission rather amusing, energy and resources, satellite tech- for students at any level, provided and perhaps on that note I should nology and Law of the Sea. There is they have a bit of basic chemistry and stop writing this review and contem- less on oceanic processes to make biology and understand something of plate writing something on chemical space to retain these topics (which coastal processes. Most pollution tracers. were also in earlier editions), so tides still occurs along coasts and in no longer have amphidromic systems, shallow seas, and that includes Denise my the-Wright geostrophic currents get about a page, atmospheric inputs, which are very lames Rennell Centre and ocean chemistry gets short shrift, important in enclosed shelf-sea areas for Ocean Circulation, to give but a few examples. Is it such as the Baltic. Southampton possible that the author was per- suaded by his publishers to make the Marine pollution is an emotive issue material 'easier's0 that it could be and one of the author's reasons for used in general environmental preparing this new edition is his conviction that discussions and Principles of Oceanography (7th courses by students with little science background? policy decisions relating to pollution edition) by M. Grant Gross (1 995). must be based upon sound science. Prentice-Hall, 230pp. f 17.95 This is no better than any other He reminds us also to bear in mind (flexicover, ISBN 0-02-347981 -7) introductory general oceanography that most anthropogenic inputs to the I am disappointed. This is the latest text you could buy, and a good deal sea are not a whole lot different from version of a series of student text- less good than some, especially those natural inputs - halogenated hydro- books on introductory oceanography, that have more attractive illustrations carbons and derelict drift nets being which Grant Gross has been putting and give you the same or more two obvious exceptions. Most of our out for the last 25 years or so. The information and explanation for little polluting activities in fact merely previous six editions went under the if any extra cost. I concede that one increase rates of supply of materials title Oceanography: A View of the or two diagrams are useful, even that already enter the seas and Earth, which at least had a certain novel, and the book does have end- oceans naturally. Even the effects of resonance. The new title and content of-chapter summaries and questions radioactivity from nuclear wastes, are pedestrian by comparison with (though no answers), plus a glossary. and excess heat from power stations, the old ones. None of that is new - lots of other differ in degree rather than in kind books do the same these days. from their natural counterparts. In I have only the first and fourth Verdict: If there's no other introduc- effect, humans are competing with editions (1972 and 1987), but I tory text in the shop, you could buy volcanoes, hydrothermal systems, oil believe the fifth and sixth editions to this one; otherwise, you might find seeps, erosion of metal-rich rocks and have been similar and with the same one of the alternatives better value. ores, hydrocarbons produced by aim: "to introduce students to the What a shame. Earlier editions of the plants (both marine and terrestrial), ocean and how it works ... A high- Grant Gross oeuvre were by way of and redistribution of soils and school level in science and math- becoming classics. sediments by wind, rain, rivers and ematics is assumed." In the seventh storms. These processes have been edition there is a subtle change, and John Wright going on throughout the Earth's the book is "... intended ... as an ... history, and problems arise only introductory course at either high when our additions raise concentra- school or college level, or as a tions - especially on a local scale - supplemental text on other [science] to levels that may be harmful to life. courses. ... It assumes only high- That is what we perceive as pollu- school-level scientific knowledge and tion. More decades ago than I care no mathematics" (my italics). to remember, my Granny defined dirt The author claims that he has rewrit- as 'matter out of place'. I have never ten the text to emphasise fundamental been able to improve on that succinct phrase, and it serves as a pretty good 1 didn't realise that oil spills actually ing reading, rapidly dispelling any general definition of pollution too. have rather little effect on plankton possible complacency about present populations, and it seems that the levels of marine pollution world- The author also suggests that the public perception of sea-birds as the wide. Some sections appear to be apparent spread of contamination chief victims of oil spills is in fact based only on pre-1980s information, (pollution) of the marine environment correct. Nor did I know that the and if recent trends are any guide, the by industrial civilisations may be chief source of marine oil pollution situation in the Mediterranean and more a matter of increased sampling associated with offshore production is Caspian Seas, to name but two, is if and monitoring and of improved not in fact pipeline accidents or rig anything worse than described in the analytical techniques, than of real blow-outs but oil-saturated drill book. The author was not able to changes in the quantity of 'manufac- chippings dumped on the sea-bed benefit from the North Sea Project tured' pollutants entering the sea. In beneath drilling platforms (though it results, but these would probably not any case, some polluting practices seems that this practice is being affect the summary significantly. He have ceased or been greatly curtailed phased out). maltes the telling point that I... the in certain regions, e.g, incineration at practices of the fishing industry have Metals vary considerably in their sea off Europe, marine dumping of a dominating influence on the size of toxic effects, depending on the metal-rich dredging spoil from exploitable fish stocks in the North metalk) and the organism(s) con- harbours in the southern North Sea, Sea. Against this background, it is cerned, the form in which the metal(s) and disposal of nuclear wastes at sea. impossible to detect any effects that occur(s) and so on. As noted on p.5 International legislation, agreements pollution may have had on the in connection with the Brent Spar, and conventions have helped both to fishery.' (See also Tim Jicltells' report considerable tonnages of metals are moderate the extent of pollution and on the 1993 North Sea Quality Status being continuously spewed into the to encourage good practice in waste Report in Ocean Challenge, Vol. 5, oceans by hydrothermal vents, and disposal. However, you can't legis- No.1.) late against accidents; furthermore the seawater solution contains all the there remain plenty of unscrupulous known elements anyway. The The last chapter, 'Assessing pollution organisations, and even governments, capacity of many marine organisms, damage', could be the most contro- who 'couldn't care less' about marine especially shellfish, to accumulate versial in the book, as the author pollution, illegal dumping and the metals to levels orders of magnitude himself recognises. Here's a snippet like, Ignorance of the effects of above seawater concentrations is also to get you going: When the Torrey anthropogenic wastes on the marine well established. Again, it is not the Canyon was wrecked off Land's End environment must also be a factor in metals themselves that are specifi- in 1967, it was decided to try and less developed regions of the world, cally the problem; what matters is clean up the beaches rather than the where local populations are inevita- the rates at which they are introduced oil slick at sea, because while the bly less well educated and informed into the sea. sliclt might damage fisheries worth £6 million, the beached oil would than they might be elsewhere. Halogenated hydrocarbons (DDT, damage tourism worth £60 million. PCBs etc.) constitute a more serious There is a lot of environmental By far the greatest quantities of wastes threat to the health of seas and jargon, with terms and phrases like: that enter the sea are either bio- oceans than anything else, chiefly Polluter Pays Principle, Environmen- degradeable (chiefly sewage, but also because they are wholly synthetic, tal Impact Assessment, Precautionary petroleum products), or essentially having no natural counterparts. They Principle, and BATNEEC (Best inert (mainly dredging spoil, which are now global in their distribution, Available Technology Not Entailing may, however, be contaminated with they are not biodegradeable, they are Excessive Cost). Even so, it is a very metals, but also quarry wastes of highly soluble in animal fats, and useful overview of the problems that various kinds). On the whole, it is (lilte many metals) they are readily bedevil attempts to pin down the the rates at which these substances 'adsorbed on particulate matter. So effects of pollution. The author also enter marine environments that cause they accumulate in fatty tissue and in makes the valuable point that natural most of the damage: either de- sediments. Incidentally, I note that fluctuations in reproduction and oxygenation of the water, or the the author classifies metals and recruitment of coastal and shallow- smothering of benthic communities. halogenated hydrocarbons as con- water animal populations can be so servative pollutants, not in the sense It's not as simple as that, of course: great as to mask any possible changes that we generally understand the term the lighter fractions of petroleum - attributable to pollution. in oceanography, but in the sense especially when refined and particu- that, not being subject to bacterial or larly the aromatic (benzene-based) You will enjoy this book, I promise, other brealtdown, they are in effect and there don't seem to be too many hydrocarbons - are highly toxic. permanent additions to the marine typos either. I saw at least two They are also the most volatile environment. I also learned that it is pictures that I intend to use in fractions and won't persist long, but difficult to distinguish between the assessment exercises for our Open after they are lost by evaporation, the effects of adsorption and those of University oceanography students. remaining oil has a physical effect ingestion of these 'conservative' (coating surfaces, clogging sediments, pollutants on micro-organisms: especially in low energy environ- John Wright adsorption is not directly harmful, but ments), and uses up oxygen. (I am may affect higher trophic levels, left wondering just what happens to while ingestion could be toxic both to those toxic volatile fractions circulat- the organism itself and to anything ing in the atmosphere, though; I guess else that eats it. they are so heavily diluted and so widely dispersed that when they A chapter entitled 'The state of some reach the surface again they do little seas' briefly reviews a number of harm and are rapidly degraded.) shelf-sea regions and maltes fascinat- Michael D. Krom

For many years the oceanography of the Eastern Mediterranean has been relatively neglected, yet it has several characteristics that make it an unusual sea and one worthy of detailed study. It is the source of Mediterranean outflow water, which is one of the important water masses in the North Atlantic. It has low primary and secondary productivity (i.e. it is ultra-oligotrophic), as well as unusually low species diversity, particularly in its deeper waters. Recent studies have also shown it to be the largest body of water in the world in which the primary productivity is unequivocally limited by the availability of phosphate. What are the characteristics of this special part of the world's oceans? And why are its physical, chemical and biological properties so unusual?

The Mediterranean Sea is an ocean basin that of drastically changing water column chemis- is gradually closing as the African Plate try caused periodic of the native moves north and collides with Euroae. In the fauna, particularly in deeper water. As a comparatively recent geological pa;t (Late result, the deep-water fauna of the basin is Miocene, 7.5-5 million years ago), there much less varied than in, for example, the were periods when the basin all but dried adjacent Red Sea. out. This resulted in the extensive deposits of salt that underlie much of the sea-bed of The Mediterranean Sea can be divided into the present-day Mediterranean. Most authors three basins (Figure 1): the Western Basin argue that during the Holocene and Pleisto- comprises the region west of Sicily, while the cene (400000 to approximately 7000 years Adriatic and lonian seas in the Central Basin ago), circulation within the eastern Mediter- are separated from the Aegean Sea and the ranean became so restricted at times that all Levantine Basin in the Eastern Basin by the of the deeper waters became anoxic, as in Sea of Crete and the Cretan Straits. In this the Black Sea today. These periods are review I will deal with the oceanography of represented by a series of deposits of organic- the Eastern Basin, particularly the physical rich sediments called sapropels. This history and chemical oceanography of the smaller Levantine Basin within it.

Figure 1 The bathyrnetry and geographical setting of the Mediterranean Sea.

The basins of the Mediterranean are separated by the Cretan Straits and the Straits of Sicily Water Masses Figure 2 Summer temperature and salinity The only significant input of 'new' seawater profiles from a sampling station in the eastern Mediterranean considered typical of the region. into the eastern Mediterranean is from the

Atlantic Ocean. This Atlantic Water (AW). . flows in at the surface through the straits of salinity 38.0 39.0 40.0 Gibraltar (see Figure 3). Part of this inflow I I 1 reaches the astern Basin via a sinuous temperature ("C) eastward path, more-or-less parallel to the __---- z surface mixed layer north coast of Africa. It is found immediately - - Atlantic Water (AW) below the summer mixed layer (Figure 2), and can be recognized in the water column Levantine by its low salinity relative to the waters lntermediate Water above and below. The other major water (LIW) mass flowing into the Eastern Basin is the Levantine Deep Water (LDW). This water mass has a characteristic salinity of 38.7 and a temperature of -1 3.5 "C. Levantine Deep Water LDW is formed in winter in the northern (LDW) Adriatic by cooling and evaporation under the influence of cold dry winds. After jI / sinking, it flows as a relatively narrow jet of 1000 In the eastern Med, water along the western side of the Adriatic Levantine and out into the eastern Mediterranean where ln termedia te Water it makes up the deep water in the Levantine ranean, it flows at intermediate depths lies between Basin (Figures 2 and 3). Wolfgang Roether across the Central Basin and out through Atlantic Water and Levan tine Deep has estimated, on the basis of tritium and the Straits of Sicily, joining with Riviera Water Freon measurements, that LDW has a resi- lntermediate Water (RIW), and eventually dence time of 50-1 00 years before it is mixed becoming the major component of Mediter- with intermediate water and flows out of the ranean Outflow Water (MOW) (Figure 3). basin. It has been suggested that LIW forms mainly in the northern part of the Eastern Basin, The Levantine Basin is the principal site for south of the Turkish coast; also that its the formation of Levantine lntermediate formation may be connected with the eddies Water (LIW; Figures 2 and 3) whose charac- and gyres present in the area. teristic temperature and salinity are 15 "C and 39 repectively. This is an important water mass: having formed in the Eastern Mediter-

The interleaving Figure 3 Schematic diagram showing the areas of flows of water formation and the main flow patterns of the major masses within water masses in the Mediterranean Sea. the Mediterranean

RIW Riviera lntermediate Water LIW Levantine lntermediate Water LDW Levantine Deep Water Current Patterns Eddies are important because they can The earliest measurements of physical prop- entrap, transport, and disperse chemicals, erties in the water of the Levantine Basin particulate matter, small organisms, heat, were made from the Norwegian ship RV Thor and so on. They also significantly modify in 1910. On the basis of these data, the the vertical mixing patterns in an area, circulation in the upper and intermediate creating, among other phenomena, zones of layers of the Levantine basin was depicted as upwelling and downwelling which in turn a simple basin-wide cyclonic gyre. Water can have a major effect on the biological flowed in along the North African coast and productivity. In the world's oceans in gen- flowed out along the Turkish and Greek eral, most of the eddies so far studied in coasts. Data collected subsequently by the detail are actually 'rings' which have formed American RV Atlantis in 1948, the French RV from frontal currents, flowing along the Calypso in 1956, and various Soviet vessels boundaries between bodies of water with in the late 1950s through to the early 1970s, contrasting temperature and other physical supported this picture of the large-scale and chemical properties (Gulf Stream rings circulation. are, of course, the best-known of this type of mesoscale eddy). However, mesoscale In 1985, a multinational programme was eddies are not only found in the vicinity of initiated to study in more detail the Physical such frontal regions, but occur throughout Oceanography of the Eastern Mediterranean the world's oceans. For large areas of (POEM). This POEM programme, which is ocean, they are considered to be an impor- still continuing, is a cooperative effort tant reason for the observed patchiness in involving scientists from Croatia, Cyprus, chemical properties and biological produc- Egypt, France, Germany, Greece, Israel, Italy, tivity. Turkey, and the United States. As a result of the work of this programme, we now know The quasi-stationary eddies (gyres) in the that the current patterns in the eastern eastern Mediterranean, which are located Mediterranean are more complex than comparatively close to shore, appear to have originally thought (Figure 4). There is a many of the features of mid-ocean eddies, complex system of persistent sub-basin-scale including the fact that (as recent studies gyres interconnected by meandering currents have shown) they are formed by physical as well as an energetic mesoscale field processes within a single body of water. My consisting of warm- and cold-core eddies. co-workers and I have studied in detail the Because the scale of the gyres is similar to chemical, physical and biological properties that of mesoscale eddies, the terms 'gyres' of the warm-core Cyprus Eddy while Kamal and 'eddies' are often used interchangeably Saydam and co-workers have carried out by researchers working in the Eastern Medi- similar studies on the cold-core Rhodes Gyre terranean. For example, a persistent warm- (Figure 4). core eddy off the Egyptian coast is commonly called the Mersa Matruh Gyre, and the Chemical Properties Rhodes Gyre is a cold-core eddy south-east The Eastern Basin of the Mediterranean has a of the island of Rhodes; a warm-core eddy higher salinity (-39.5) than any other part of south of Cyprus is variously called the the world's oceans except the Red Sea, as a Shikmona Gyre or the Cyprus Eddy. consequence of high evaporation rates and low freshwater inputs. Recent studies have revealed that abrupt, significant and appar- ently irreversible changes in the characteris- Figure 4 General circulation pattern in the Eastern tic salinity of the surface and intermediate Mediterranean showing the principal eddies and waters have occurred over the past several jets in the region; the Mid-Mediterranean Jet (MMJ) The system of is the principal carrier of Atlantic Water into the years. These changes are probably due to interconnected Eastern Basin (cf. Figure 3). The circulatory features diversion of fresh water that used to flow gyres in the eastern labelled in italic are cyclonic and have cold cores; into the basin. As in many parts of the Mediterranean the others are anticyclonic and have warm cores. world. rivers which once flowed into the ocean have been diverted and are now used almost entirely for industry or agriculture. One of the most dramatic examples of this is the River Nile which until 1965 discharged 50-60 x 1o9 m3 of water every year into the Eastern Basin of the Mediterranean, and now discharges only about 10 x lo9m3 yr-'. Another example is the flow into the Levantine Basin from Israel: 96 per cent of the water which falls on the country is diverted for human use, and as a result not a single river or stream now has a permanent flow of natural fresh water to the sea. The deep waters of the Eastern Mediterra- nean have unusually low concentrations of nutrients when compared to deep waters in salinity phosphate (IM) chlorophyll-a (pg I-') 39.0 39.5 0 0.1 0.2 0 0.2 0.4 I I

- - - - m A A - - A El - * A Cl 0 A - nitrate - - chloro-a ------salinity S - @ A 0 phosphate 0 silicate

0 I I n 0 4 8 0 4 8 -12 temperature ("C) nitrate (PM) silicate (pM )

I I 200 300 5 dissolved oxygen (PM ) Figure Typical profiles of physical, chemical, In the Levantine and biological parameters for the eastern Med- Basin, there is a iterranean, from a station located immediately chlorophyll north of the Cyprus Eddy, in early summer. maximum but (p~= pmol kg1) no oxygen minimum layer other oceans. LDW typically has 6 pmol kg-' in the region by removing phosphorus from nitrate, 0.25 pmol kg-' phosphate, and 10-1 2 solution in LDW. pmol kg-' silicate (Figure 5). By comparison, waters of similar depth in the Atlantic Ocean Primary Productivity in the Levantine Basin have dissolved nitrate, phosphate and silicate ~ecauskof the low nutrient content in the concentrations of 20, 1.8 and 20 pmol kg-' deep water, when it is upwelled or mixed respectively. The primary reason for the low into the photic zone it is only able to support nutrient levels in LDW is-the very low net a very low primary productivity. Away from supply of nutrients to the Levantine Basin. the direct influence of eddies, summer levels The Atlantic .waters flowing into the Mediter- of chlorophyll-a are typically 0.25 pg I-'at ranean at Gibraltar are nutrient-depleted the chlorophyll-a maximum (which is at surface waters, while the intermediate waters -1 20 m) and 25 mg m-2 for the entire water which flow out of the basin are relatively column (Figure 5). This is similar to levels in enriched in dissolved nutrients. In addition, mid-oceanic regions like the Sargasso Sea there is very little natural input of nutrients and the central Pacific gyre, and - '130 of from the adjacent land masses, particularly levels commonly found in coastal and shelf the Sahara Desert to the south. waters like the North Sea. For oceanic waters, transparency has an inverse relation- It is not yet certain what effect anthropogenic ship with productivity. Because of the clarity changes have had on the nutrient budget of of the water, the Eastern Mediterranean has the eastern Mediterranean. The large in- one of the deepest euphotic zones known (in crease of population in the regions around 1985, Tommy Berman and co-workers the basin (including the influx of tourists) has claimed a world record Secchi disk depth of resulted in large amounts of sewage effluent, 53 m in the Levantine Basin off the Israeli which contains dissolved organic and inor- coast). Low phytoplankton productivity is ganic nutrients and particulate organic one of the reasons for the deep blue colour matter, being discharged directly or indirect1y so characteristic of the Mediterranean (which into the basin. There is also an increased helps to make it so popular with tourists). flux of nutrients into the basin via the atmos- Low primary productivity also affects the phere, from pollutant sources in Europe. As vertical distribution of dissolved oxygen noted above, however, many of the rivers (Figure 5). There is only a relatively small which used to flow into the Levantine Basin decrease in oxygen with depth, and there is are now diverted for industrial, agricultural no observable oxygen minimum as there is in or domestic needs, and do not reach the most of the rest of the world's oceans, possi- basin at all, and their flux of natural and bly as a consequence of relatively low pollutant nutrients has been cut off. For respiration in the water column. example, the construction of the Aswan dam in 1965, and the subsequent 'turning off' of The surface waters of the eastern Medi- the River Nile, has resulted in the collapse of terranean have a very large proportion of the local sardine fishery. As outlined later, small phytoplanl

-

-

----- temp. T - r nitrate + chloro-a ------salinity S-

16 20 temperature ("C) nitrate (PM) silicate (pM )

Figure 6 Profiles of physical, chemical and biological parameters from the warm core of the dissolved oxygen (p~) Cyprus Eddy in February, during the period of deep winter mixing.

Only phosphate particles < 2 pm increases with depth and when both nitrate and phosphate are mixed concentrations are can exceed 70 per cent in the chlorophyll-a from deeper layers into the photic zone, reduced to zero by phytoplankton grew until phosphate concen- phytoplankton maximum at 90-1 20 m, while viable phyto- growth planl

'

Figure 7 Geographical distribution of the molar out of the basin. The value he obtained N :P ratio in the deep water. was 150 mmol N m-2yr-l. We found that the waters of the Cyprus Eddy were essentially few such areas in the Levantine Basin. More isolated from surrounding waters for recently, Bethoux has suggested that the periods in excess of one year. We calcu- nutrient inputs of some rivers may be de- lated NP in the euphotic zone to be 300 pleted in phophate. Another explanation is mmol N m-2 yr-I in the eddy core and 210 that the atmospheric input of nutrients may mmol N m-2 yr-' for the rest of the basin. be enriched in nitrogen relative to phosphate. Within the limits of error, these values are This effect may be enhanced by pollution: similar to those of Bethoux, and to those NOx is a major atmospheric pollutant which found in other ultra-oligotrophic areas of is transformed into nitric acid and deposited the ocean, such as the central Pacific gyre. downwind of the industrial areas of western However in making this calculation we Europe. There may also be some deposition found that only -30 per cent of the values of anthropogenic ammonia. quoted above correspond to real NP, supplied by nutrients from outside the eddy We have proposed another hypothesis, (from the atmosphere and lateral advection) namely that Saharan dust is scavenging - most of the nutrients were actually phosphate from the water column - thus derived from decomposition of the previous accounting for the low phosphate content of production (i.e. it was recycled LDW mentioned previously. This area has a production) - implying real NP values of greater flux of dust than almost anywhere perhaps only 50-1 00 mmol N m-2 yr-I in else in the world, and the dust contains a this region. This result highlights a poten- high proportion of iron oxyhydroxides which tialproblem in the definition of NP, which are known to scavenge phosphate from the needs to be addresed by the oceanographic water column. (The dust input would explain community. why the region is not iron-limited.) If this L, explanation is verified it has important The core of the Rhodes Cyre, the principal implications elsewhere, as one of humanity's cold-core eddy in the eastern Mediterra- effects on the environment is to increase the nean, is a site of upwelling and thus a amount of wind-blown dust and particulate location for enhanced biological productiv- matter eroded from soils. It is also known ity. Perhaps surprisingly, the principal site , that during the last glacial period the amount for enhanced primary productivity in the of dust in the atmosphere was significantly warm-core Cyprus eddy is also the core greater than it is now. Could the world's (Figure 8, overleaf). This enhancement is oceans at that time have been phosphorus- due to deep winter mixing of the water limited? column to hundreds of metres, which brings significant amounts of nutrients into Estimates of New Production the euphotic zone. The 'upwelling' bound- New Production (NP) is a widely used con- ary of the Cyprus Eddy shows no evidence cept in oceanography. It is defined as the of enhanced biological productivity. This primary production in the euphotic zone that contrasts with the situation at the bounda- results from the supply of nutrients from ries of oceanic warm-core rings where outside that zone, as distinct from the pri- there is enhanced productivity - but that mary production that occurs as a result of appears to have more to do with the recycling processes in the water column. temperature contrasts at the boundary than Jean-Pierre Bethoux calculated the NP of the with upwelling. whole eastern Mediterranean basin by estimating the total flux of nutrients into and 80 distance (krn)

Figure 8 Cross-sections of (a) temperature and Further Reading (b) nitrate for the Cyprus warm-core eddy in May. The physical oceanography of the eastern Accompanying profiles are for the centre of the eddy. Sections and profiles show that high Mediterranean is reviewed in a series of papers productivity extends from the stratified surface brought together in a volume of 'Topical layer down to about 500 m in the core of the eddy. Studies in Oceanography', edited by A.R. Robinson and P. Malonote-Rizzoli, Deep-Sea Future Studies Research (Part !I), 40, No. 6, 1993. The papers The second phase of the POEM programme is describe results from the first phase of the now underway, and one of its aims is to POEM programme mentioned in this article. integrate biological and chemical measure- ments with a comprehensive set of physical measurements. The participating researchers Acknowledgements hope to find out more about what controls I would like to acknowledge the help and the nutrient cycling and hence the primary support of my friends and former colleagues productivity in the region, about the ways in at the National Institute of Oceanography, which human activities have affected those IOLR, Haifa, Israel. In particular, I would like cycles, and the cause of the unusual phos- to thank the director, Dr Yuval Cohen and my phorus-limitation in the region. Studies will co-workers in studies of the eastern Mediter- also be undertaken to find out how the ranean: Drs Nurit Kress, Steve Brenner, Amir phytoplankton species have adapted to grow Neori and Lou Gordon. in the very clear, oligotrophic waters of the eastern Mediterranean. Within POEM, they also hope to learn more about the sources of Michael Krom moved to Israel in 1982, LIW in the Levantine Basin. The lessons working initially at the National Mariculture learnt from these studies will be imwortant to Centre in Eilat, studying water quality in the future prospects of this unique ;egion, marine fishponds. After moving to the already greatly affected by human activity. National Institute of Oceanography, he The studies also represent a special opportu- worked on the chemical oceanography of the nity to increase our knowledge of important eastern Mediterranean and marine pollution. oceanographic processes which are difficult He took up his present position as lecturer at and expensive to study elsewhere. the Dept of Earth Sciences, Leeds, in 1991. SOUTH

present status and uture prospects Paul Rodhouse Martin White lnigo Everson

The most abundant species of large animal (>40 kg) on the planet is the human, estimated population about 5.7 billion and currently growing at an annual rate of 1.7%. The UN predicts that the population could reach -10 billion by 2050. Although there is widespread belief, not discouraged by the fishing industry, that the oceans will make an important contribution to future human food requirements, it appears we are currently exploiting fish and other seafood at about the upper limit that stocks can support, and even in the remote seas of the Antarctic some species have been effectively driven to commercial extinction. With respect to traditional fisheries it would appear that the carrying capacity of the planet has been already been reached.

Global Context of water and land and problems of pollution In 1990 the total world catch of marine fish and disease. Even if aquaculture develops showed a decline, finally reversing a trend of according to the most optimistic scenario, 20 years or so of increasing catches. Total there is undoubtedly going to be a continuing landings dropped some 3% to 83 million reliance on capture fisheries for a major tonnes. It is significant that in the years proportion of the world demand for seafood. leading up to 1990, catches of high value Furthermore, aquaculture depends heavily on species had been decreasing - in some cases pelleted food, much of which is manufac- since the 1960s - and the upward trend in tured from fish meal from the capture fisher- total catch had only been maintained by ies of 'trash species'. Clearly the problem increased targeting of alternative, lower facing fishery managers is not one of how to value resources, Increasing investment in, increase the global catch but how, at best, to and effort by, fishing fleets globally, at a time sustain catches at present levels without of declining catches of higher value species, doing irreversible damage to the marine has meant that the total catch has remained environment. more or less stable at ever increasing cost. Despite the size of the world's oceans, The UN Food and Agriculture Organization covering some 70% of the surface of the (FAO) estimates that the capacity of the planet, marine fish production is largely world's fishing fleets grew at about twice the limited to regions where there is high pro- rate of the total marine catch between 1970 ductivity at the base of the food chain. and 1990. Annual subsidies totalling $54 Composite global ocean colour images billion encouraged this investment and now chlorophyll concentrations (as on result in the industry operating at an esti- the cover of Ocean Challenge) indicate mated loss of $22 billion per year at a time regions of high phytoplankton standing stock when the total value of the catch is $70 and highlight regions of high productivity. billion. Last year's so-called 'tuna war' in Such images show that much of the world the Bay of Bi'ca~and the recent Over ocean is effectively desert, especially in the halibut on the Grand Banks of tropics, while conspicuous regions of high Newfoundland are symptoms of a deep chlorophyll levels in the North Sea, the problem and it seems certain that such events Saharan Banks and the Benguela upwelling will become more frequent in future as the system correspond to locations where fisher- competition for resources increases. ies have been historically pursued. It has Aquaculture currently boosts global fish been estimated that in these areas 20-40% of production by -1 5 million tonnes per year the primary productivity is used either and this could quadruple by 2025. However, directly, or indirectly via the food chain, to there may be constraints imposed by shortage sustain fish catches. Southern Ocean Fisheries Table 1 The major Antarctic marine living The Southern Ocean is a huge region resources: the species and their current status. comprising some 10% of the total world ocean. A composite ocean colour image of Fish (target species only) the Southern Ocean indicates the major Notothenia rossii (southern rock cod) regions of high productivity. Levels of South Georgia: over-exploited primary production are generally of the same Kerguelen: over-exploited order as elsewhere in the world's oceans but the growth season for phytoplankton is short. Champsocephalus gunnari (mackerel ice-fish) Strikingly high densities of chlorophyll are South Georgia: over-exploited visible close to the ice shelves of the Weddell South OrkneysJAntarctic Peninsula: and Ross Seas and off the Antarctic continent over-exploited in the Prydz Bay area. However, these are Kerguelen: over-exploited? highly seasonal environments with sea-ice Lepidonotothen squamifrons (grey rock cod) cover for much of the year. Primary produc- Kerguelen: over-exploited tion by phytoplankton during the short intense growth season in these high latitudes Dissostichus eleginoides (Patagonian toothfish) mostlv sinks to the sea-bed where it is South Georgia: not known consumed by dense populations of long-lived Kerguelen: over-exploited? suspension-feeding sponges, echinoderms, Electrons carlsbergi (lanternfish) hydroids and ascidians, which have no value as human food. Elsewhere, productivity is South Georgia: under-exploited high in the Sea, the Bellingshausen Sea and locally in the vicinity of the Sub- Crustaceans Antarctic Islands such as South Georgia, the and Heard Island. It is in Euphausia superba (Antarctic krill) these regions, especially the Scotia Sea and Under-exploited the Kerguelen Plateau, that the Antarctic Paralomis spinosissima and P. formosa fisheries are pursued. There are also areas of (Antarctic king crabs) high productivity in some sectors of the Under-exploited Antarctic Polar Frontal Zone where the potential for commercial fisheries has not been fully explored. Molluscs (squid) Martialia hyadesi (seven star flying squid) In the past, the Southern Ocean has been the Under-exploited setting for massive exploitation of homio- thermic ('warm-blooded') species, especially whales but also seals and penguins. The collapse of the whale stocks in the 1960s and their subsequent failure to recover, together with the shift in public opinion in the inter- vening years, means that future exploitation valuable fishes belong to the sub-order of homiotherms is unlikely. However there Notothenioidei, the rock-cods. Most are a number of poikilothermic ('cold- exploitation has been at South Georgia, the blooded') species that are either the subject Kerguelen Islands and the South Orkney of current fisheries or are likely to be ex- Islands/Antarctic Peninsula region." The ploited in the future. major stocks have been over-exploited and are currently much below their virgin The major poikilothermic Antarctic marine biomass levels. The history of the Antarc- The catch of living resources and their status are listed in tic fin-fishery since its inception during the Antarctic fin-fish Table 1. The majority of the commercially late 1960s shows clearly that total catches has declined by have declined to about 10% of their 90% in 20 years original values (Figure 1). It is also evident that the fishing industry has transferred its attention from one stock to another as each has been depleted below +i+total catches I commercially viable levels. Initially the 8 total nototheniids nototheniids were'the mainstay of the 0 total channichthyids fishery, then as these quickly declined, the 3t total rnyctophids fishing fleets turned to catching channichthyids (ice-fish), until these stocks also failed during the mid-1980s.

Figure I Total catches of fin-fish in the Southern 80 85 Ocean years Recently, one of the largest fin-fish fisheries Figure 2 Lanternfish (myctophid) Electrona Species that have in the Southern Ocean has been for carlsbergi (maximum size - 9 cm). been subject to myctophids (lanternfish), for example recent commercial exploitation in Electrona carlsbergi (Figure 2). There are Antarctic waters large, but little known, stocks of lanternfishes in the productive sectors of the Antarctic Polar Frontal Zone. These are lightly ex- ploited at present fishing levels, are of low commercial value and have mostly been used for the production of meal for animal feed. The decline of fin-fish stocks in the Southern Ocean has led the fishing industry to diver- sify its techniques to exploit new species in an attempt to maintain the value of the Figure 3 Patagonian toothfish Dissostichus fishery. This has lead to the development of eleginoides (maximum size - 215 cm). a long-line fishery by , Korea and Russia to exploit the high value Patagonian tooth- fish, Dissostichus eleginoides (Figure 3), in the vicinity of South Georgia and adjacent seamounts. Even though this fishery only contributes a small amount to the total annual fin-fish catch, little is known about its stock size and biology, so control over the fishery is being exercised to prevent it declining in the same manner as the previ- ously exploited species.

Although of moderate value compared with other crustaceans, in terms of biomass, Antarctic krill, Euphausia superba (Figure 4), Figure 4 Antarctic krill, Euphausia superba is the single largest harvest from the Ant- (maximum size - 7 cm). arctic. In spite of a circumpolar distribution, the most important fishing areas are South Georgia and the South Shetland and South Orkney Islands in the Atlantic sector. Catches have tended to fluctuate as Russian vessels have switched between targeting fin- fish stocks, when abundant, and then krill when fish stocks declined. Recent reduction in fishing effort by Russia, since the advent of a market economy and the withdrawal of unprofitable vessels, has led to a greatly reduced and more stable level of exploita- tion, mostly by the Japanese. In the overall context the krill stock is underexploited but Figure 5 Antarctic king crab, Paralomis because fishing often takes place in areas spinosissima (maximum size - 16 cm). that are locally ecologically sensitive there is a need for careful management.

Stocks of king crabs, Paralomis spinosissima (Figure 5) and P, formosa are Iknown to occur in the Antarctic but these have not been surveyed and their biology is poorly under- stood. These are high value species but it is likely that they grow and reproduce at slow rates. They would therefore be susceptible to over-exploitation, and so sustainable levels of exploitation would be low. An Alaskan king crab vessel recently spent a season fishing for P, spinosissima and P. formosa at South Georgia and despite strict limitations on gear, which was confined to use of pots, and restrictions concerning minimum size and gravid females, a large catch was reported. Subsequently, market conditions for king crab in the US have discouraged a return but this fishery is likely to be developed in the medium term. Figure 6 Seven star flying squid, Martialia hyadesi large stocks are present, at least in the (maximum size - 45 cm). Atlantic sector, and possibly elsewhere, but any future fishery is likely to have conse- quences for the seabirds and seals that rely on this species, especially during the sensi- tive breeding season.

Management Since 1982, the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources, CCAMLR, has been the inter- national body responsible, under the aus- pices of the Antarctic Treaty, for the manage- ment of marine fisheries in the Southern Ocean. The Commission meets annually to establish provisions for the management of exploited species but in contrast to fishery conventions elsewhere it also goes much further. Stocks are managed on the princi- ple that harvesting should not reduce stocks below a level that (I) that ensures their stable recruitment, (2) compromises the maintenance of stable ecological relation- Antarctic squid may ships between harvested, dependent and be the next group related populations of Antarctic marine to be targeted by living resources and (3) causes changes in fisheries in the the ecosystem that are not potentially Southern Ocean reversible within two or three decades. In Cephalopods, i.e. squid and octopus, are other words, the Commission sets out to short lived, generally of high value, and in manage the fisheries in the context of the many areas of the world ocean have become ecosYstem~ the vertebrate preda- important alternatives to traditional stocks tor populations (seabirds and seals). In spite where these have declined. Major inter- of these laudable aims, many stocks of the national fisheries for squid are pursued on the valuable fish were severely Patagonian Shelf around the prior the establishment and exploratory fishing has been carried out CCAMLR and much of the Commission's at South Georgia and in the Polar Frontal efforts have been directed at reinstating Zone of the Scotia Sea. The most likely stocks. As with other Antarctic Treaty Areas of the candidate for commercial exploitation in the provisions, the Convention is difficult to Southern Ocean enforce and relies on voluntary compliance are often short to medium term is the seven star flying subject to the squid, Martialia hyadesi (Figure 6). Informa- the governments the administration of tion from predator gut contents suggest that countries. more than one In 1993 the UK government claimed a authority 200 nautical mile maritime zone around South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands (SGSSI) (Figure 7). The SGSSl government accepts CCAMLR regulations for the management of stocks but may impose more stringent regulations if this is consid- ered necessary. The benefit to CCAMLR of the SGSSl Maritime Zone is that much better catch statistics and assessment data will be available upon which to base regulations. In addition major ecological research programmes on resources and higher predators are carried out by the in the area, so there is CCAMLR considerable potential for the future sustain- Sub-area 48.2 able management of stocks.

Figure 7 South Georgia and South Sandwich lslands Maritime Zone (heavy dashed line); also shown are CCAMLR statistical sub-areas, used in data analysis. 51 W 45 W 39 W 33 W 27 W 21 W Table 2 An indication of the potential Martialia hyadesi are estimated to be con- contribution of Southern Ocean fisheries to world sumed annually by vertebrate predators. catch. When a fishery starts it will be necessary to proceed with extreme caution if this poten- Resource Potential annual catch tially valuable and ecologically important resource is not to be wantonly destroyed in Notothenioids Total: 100 000 tonnes the way that the fragile fish stocks were two decades ago. (rock cods and ice-fish) South Georgia: In spite of the global crisis in exploitation of 35 000-50 000 tonnes many marine species, there are still some stocks, notably of Antarctic krill and squid, Myctophidae Not assessed that could sustain increased catch rates. However, in view of the problems that have (lanternfishes) been created by over-exploitation elsewhere it is imperative that these under-utilised Euphausia superba >1.5 million tonnes resources be carefully managed to ensure a (Antarctic krill) sustainable fishery and the maintenance of ecological relationships. The slow growth and reproductive rate of most Southern Martialia hyadesi Not assessed Ocean species means that stocks are slow to (seven star recover from the effects of over-exploitation. flying squid) The UK, represented by the British Antarctic Survey, is a major contributor to research on marine living resources in the Antarctic and the ecologi;al systems that depend on these resources. The Survev's Marine Life The Future Sciences Division supports research pro- Antarctic fisheries are currently undergoing a grammes on the dynamics of the plankton, period of change. The major nations involved large-scale modelling of the Southern Ocean in the fishery have been the former Soviet and studies on higher predators that under- Union, Poland, the former GDR, Bulgaria, pin research on the living resources. The Japan, Korea and Chile. The collapse of Survey makes a major contribution to the communism and the advent of market econo- work of CCAMLR in the areas of fish stock mies in eastern Europe, as mentioned previ- assessment, estimates of krill standing stock, ously, has led to a decline in fishing effort, inspection of commercial vessels fishing in but there are reports that Russia is currently the CCAMLR area and the CCAMLR Eco- planning to invest $1 billion in a modern system Monitoring Programme (CEMP). fishing fleet. Given the pressures of human Commissioned research is also undertaken of population growth and demand for quality behalf of the Falkland Islands Government rotei in it is inevitable that attention will be on the life-cycle biology and recruitment once again focussed on the Southern Ocean, processes of the commercial squid stocks on a region still perceived by many to be largely the Patagonian Shelf. unexploited. An indication of the potential annual yield of Acknowledgements Southern Ocean fisheries is shown in Table 2. Figure 2 is reproduced from Miller, R.G. It has been estimated that if de~letedstocks (1 993) History and Atlas of the Fishes of the can be restored the maximum 'annual yield Southern Ocean, Foresta Institute for Ocean that could be attained from the notothenioid and Mountain Studies. fishes of Antarctic shelf waters is about Figure 3, 4 and 5 are reproduced by permis- 100000 tonnes. of which some 35-50000 sion of the Food and Agriculture Organiza- tonnes would come from around South tion of the United Nations, from Fischer, W. Georgia. The potential yield of krill has and Hureau, J.C. Species Identification proven to be very difficult to estimate, largely Sheets for Fishery Purposes, Southern Ocean, because of the difficulties of estimating stock Vols. I and II. size in a population with a patchy distribution over extremely large areas of remote ocean. Figure 6 is reproduced from Rodhouse, P.G. However, a precautionary catch limitation of and Yeatman, J. (1 990) Bull. Br. Mus. Nat. 1.5 million tonnes per year has been set by Hist. (Zool.), 56, 135-1 43. CCAMLR, with a limit within any sub-area (cf. Figure 7) of 620000 tonnes. This is higher Paul Rodhouse, Martin White and lnigo than any annual catch to date. Standing stock Everson are biologists in the Marine Life of king crabs at South Georgia is estimated to Sciences Division at the British Antarctic be in the region of 48-78000 tonnes. Annual Survey, High Cross, Madingley Road, yield would be considerably less. Squid Cambridge CB3 OET, UK. Their research stocks are also extremely difficult to assess. focusses on the biology of the marine living In the Scotia Sea some 350000 tonnes of resources of the Southern Ocean. 70 years of sampling the ocean's fauna Martin V. Angel

The first programmes of systematic sampling of the marine environment were initiated in the early 1900s, chiefly as a consequence of concerns about the uncontrolled manner in which the fishing and whaling industries were eating into the living resources of the ocean. This widespread increase in awareness that stocks of any marine species -fish as well as marine mammals - need to be scientifically managed led to the establishment of ICES (the International Commission for Exploration of the Seas) to collect and coordinate data on catches and the status of stocks and the marine environment in the North Atlantic. In 1904, W.L. Allardyce, the Governor of the Falklands, introduced the first regulations to restrain the slaughter of whales in the Falklands and its Dependencies. The regulations sought to restrict the numbers of shore-based stations, factory ships and whale-catchers, as well as banning the killing of cows with calves.

The early history of whaling as described by equipped only to hunt right whales and Sydney Harmer in 1928 is a sorry story of returned empty-handed. The Swedish Antarc- greedy and ignorant over-exploitation. The tic Expedition, which began in 1901, included first whales to be hunted had been the Captain C.A. Larsen who, excited by what he Biscayan right whales - 'right' because when saw during the expedition, founded a whal- killed they floated - which Basques started ing company in Buenos Aires on his return. exploiting some time in the 10th or 11 th On 24 December 1903, a whaler Anderssen centuries. Between 151 7 and 1561, at least killed a humpback whale, the very first whale 700-1 000 whales were taken from the ever to be taken in the Southern Ocean: the Spanish coast; this proved enough to drive Antarctic whaling industry had begun. the whales away, forcing the Basques to go Larsen returned to Norway in 1904, reporting progressively further afield. By 1578 there large concentrations of whales off South were already reports of 20-30 ships whaling Shetlands, South Orltneys, South Sandwich off Newfoundland. These early whalers and South Georgia. It was he who established included the Icelanders, who had started the whaling station at Grytviken, South whaling in the 12th century, concentrating Georgia, in July 1904. In 1908, Norway solely on right whales. But in 1865 Svend recognized British jurisdiction over the Foyn introduced the harpoon gun which islands. Initially, the Southern Ocean allowed the exploitation of rorquals. Foyn whaling industry concentrated on hump- began by hunting blue whales off Norway: backs, with nearly 6200 being taken during very soon the stocks were exhausted and the 1910-1 1. By 1912, twenty-one whale- whalers began to look elsewhere. catchers were alreadv operating from shore The first whalers to visit the Southern Ocean stations in south ~edr~i'aand Girty-two from (in 1893) were from Dundee; they were the South Sandwich Islands. During 1910, J.A. Morch, a Norwegian chemical engineer attached to the whaling industry, wrote to Sidney Harmer at the Natural History Museum proposing that a licensing system should be established whereby catch data should be compiled, and that a proportion of the licence fee should be set aside for scientific research. Following pressure from the Trustees of the Museum, in October 191 3 the Colonial Office sent Major G.E.H. Barrett-Hamilton, an Irish zoologist, out to South Georgia on a fact-finding mission. Barrett-Hamilton measured whales for two months before he suddenly died on 17 January 191 4. However, his data were used by an Interdepartmental Government Committee on the whaling industry, in which Martin Hinton reported that "on its present scale and with its present wasteful and indiscriminate methods, whaling is an industry which, by destroying its own re- sources, must soon expire". This first Committee was disbanded because of the War, but a second was set up at the very end of 191 7 to decide how best to regulate the whaling industry when hostilities were over. In its final report, published in 1920, the Committee identified the urgent need to study not only the biology of the whale but also its whole environment, in order to provide a scientific basis for regulat- ing the catches. In 1924, an Executive Committee was set up under the chairmanship of Rowland Darnley of the Colonial Office to manage the pro- gramme of research. The Committee used the funds provided by the whaling licences to purchase and refit Scott's Discovery at a total cost of f 11 4000 (about f 3 million at present Another inspired appointment was that of The original day prices), had the built Alister Hardy as chief zoologist. Although Discovery in the Hardy was appointed to the Chair in Zoology "lent in Igz4 for f33 000, and set up the scientific labora- (From a tory at Grytviken for just under f 10 000. at Hull at the end of the first research photograph taken 'Commission', he continued to take an active by 1. Russell and Eventually, the whole programme became and influential interest in the Discovery Sons, Southsea) known as 'Discovery Investigations' and the lnvestigations until the early 1960s. His Committee became the Discovery Committee. bool<, Great Waters, published in 1967, is a It appointed Dr Stanley Kemp to be 'Director very readable source of information, not of Research' and Leader of the Discovery only about the first Commission, but also on Expedition (or 'Commission'). Kemp had biological oceanography and the theories spent over ten years with the Zoological prevailing in the late sixties. The other Survey of India and had gained experience of zoologist appointees were N.A. Mackintosh, fisheries research off Ireland. He was a J.E. Hamilton, J.G.F. Wheeler, L. Harrison charismatic leader, "a man of great physical Matthews, E. Rolfe Gunther (all in 1924), stature, modest, beloved of his staff, whom soon followed by David Dilwyn John (1925), he was able to inspire (and sometimes F.C. Fraser (1 927), , G.W. Rayner, exasperate) through his devotion to the task, Professor F. John Hart, F.D. Ommaney and in often trying conditions on board the ever A.H. Laurie (1 929). The first hydrologists (as rolling ship". However, as Ann Savours they were known) were Henry Herdman and writes in her recent book, The Voyages of the A.J. Clowes, with George Deacon joining in Discovery, "one reason for the Discovery 1927. Many of these scientists eventually Investigations being comparatively little became Fellows of the Royal Society. known was that its leader (and the [Execu- tive] Committee) shunned publicity". Per- After the first Commission, it was apparent haps another reason was that all the results that Scott's ship was not an ideal platform were published in the house journal, Discov- for open-ocean work, and was replaced by ery Reports, which had a limited circulation a custom-built vessel Discovery 11, which and is now almost totally overlool

Discovery 11, off Simonstown in 1930 (Courtesy of the Institute of Oceanographic Sciences) In 1936, Kemp resigned as Director to surveys were made to study seasonal The William become Director of the Plymouth Laboratory. changes. One was in the Bellingshausen Scoresby leaving Alister Hardy wrote that "in the aerial bom- Sea along 80°W, where the same line of Crytviken, South Georgia bardment of Plymouth Dr Kemp suffered stations was worked between December severe strain in saving the laboratory from (Courtesy of the 1933 and November 1934. In the other a Institute of destruction by fire while incendiaries track was made westwards from Cape Town Oceanographic destroved his own house with all his r~recious to the Greenwich meridian, down this to Sciences) personal belongings, including his as yet the ice-edge, eastwards along the ice-edge unpublished research material; few can doubt and back up 20°E to Cape Town. This was that this was largely responsible for bringing started in May 1936 and was repeated ten on the illness from which he died in 1945". times either wholly or in part by March Dr Neil Mackintosh succeeded Kemp as 1939. At the same time William Scoresby Director of the Discovery Investigations. continued work mainly in the Scotia Sea Discovery I1 had continued to collect mat- but also carried out a survey of the Peru erial from the Southern Ocean; the detailed Current and another trawling survey of the survey carried out around South Georgia on Patagonian shelf. the First Commission was repeated on the Second. In early May 1931 she worked a Both Discovery I1 and William Scoresby were line of closely spaced stations from 57"s to chartered to the Ministry of Transport during 14" N along 30" W. Arthur Baker and I

Howard Roe, Gwyn Griffiths and Peter Herring

Most sound-scattering within the oceans, and all of the bioluminescence, is due to the biota. Populations and communities are not distributed uniformly but are patchy on a wide variety of spatial and temporal scales. This patchiness results from interactions between physical and biological factors with the dominant forcing function changing with scale: gyral circulation dominates large basin-scale variability and sets the overall context within which biological distributions are correlated with water masses; at the mesoscale (scales of 10s-100s km), variability is dominated by eddies and frontal systems; and at scales below this, variability becomes a function of biological behaviour, e.g. movement, , reproduction, interaction with physical turbulence and mixing processes. The relationships between patches of plankton, between biological and hydrographic features, and hence between nutrients and production, are key elements in understanding the dynamics of ocean ecosystems and, for example, the role of biology in modifying climate.

This biological variability is important in a naval same time- and space-scales as, physical context because it produces variability in acous- and chemical data. tic backscatter - or 'volume reverberation' - which is a critical parameter in the sonar equa- Acoustics tion for active sonars. Acoustics have been used in fisheries research since the 1930s, and sophisti- In an era when improved sonar hardware per- cated techniques now exist for routine formance is becoming increasingly costly and estimates ranging from stock size and fraught with technical difficulties, it is vitally abundance to individual numbers and important to make best use of knowledge of the sizes, along with information about acoustic environment. It is not uncommon for behaviour and identification of fish the biota to be responsible for spatial and tem- species. However, much of the oceanic poral variability in acoustic backscatter of 30dB biota is considerably smaller than com- (i.e. over three orders of magnitude). This mercial fish (centimetre-sized or less), variability has implications for both surface and and techniques appropriate for fisheries sub-surface naval operations, for vessels and for are not suitable for detecting these much weapon systems. Much of the biological vari- smaller animals. The ability to detect ability (i.e. backscatter) is concentrated around objects with sound in the absence of gas fronts' and eddies which may have strategic bubbles (which themselves reflect sound significance owing to their physical characteris- strongly) depends mainly on the fre- tics. Similarly, variability in bioluminescent quency of sound used, and the size and activity is a measure of environmental variability, orientation of the object. The wavelength and bioluminescence is of considerable addi- of the sound used should be of the same tional interest because of its potential use in non- order as, or less than, the size of the acoustic detection of submarines. object; essentially, to detect zooplankton and micronekton we need to use frequen- Acoustic and bioluminescent techniques for cies > 100s kHz to MHz - much higher studying biology are non-intrusive and can than those used in normal fisheries sonar. provide a variety of high-resolution quantitative and qualitative data in near real time, and over a Novel acoustic systems have been devel- variety of time- and space-scales. They can also ' oped and applied to zooplankton in the be used concurrently with other underway past two decades, and it is now possible sampling devices, for example along with to obtain quantitative data on biomass, Seasoar, an undulating hydrographic sensor size and numbers of plankton and micro- package developed at IOS Deacon Laboratory. It nekton, in addition to information on is therefore possible routinely to obtain a suite of distribution and behaviour. These new biological data simultaneously with, and on the developments are, however, extremely specialized and not in general use. In areas = high backscatter) measured from a contrast, acoustic Doppler current profilers hull-mounted ADCP whilst RRS Charles have, since the mid 1980s, become routine Darwin was underway at a speed of - 8 knots. instruments for the measurement of ocean currents. ADCPs measure current velocities The intensity of backscatter is a measure of over a depth range of 10-600 m depending biomass, and the section shows variability on frequency; they rely upon acoustic (patchiness) in backscatter (biomass) in both backscatter from particles which are assumed time and space. Between - 39" N and -48" N to be drifting passively in the water. In the there are three distinct 'zones' of high bio- open ocean these particles will be mainly mass (A, B and C). These 'zones' all occur at zooplankton, and it follows that ADCPs night between sunset and dawn and result should therefore be capable of providing from the die1 migrations of animals from deep biological data in addition to current profiles. day-time depths into the upper 300m at This possibility has been recognized and it is night. Smaller scale patchiness in the day now clear that ADCPs can provide quantita- between these intense zones reflect spatial tive and qualitative biological data on variability. In addition, the section shows the biomass, rates of movement and distribution. gross effects on biomass of a major physical feature - in this case the polar front at 51 N. Significantly, many of these data can be " Backscatter intensity increased markedly as obtained and displayed routinely in real time from hull-mounted instruments operated the front was approached and crossed - continuously underway. Very large amounts masking the daylnight differences around zones D and E. The physical signature of the of data can be collected in this way - e.g. the front is shown by the current vectors from the 1991 Vivaldi cruise of RRS Discovery sur- ADCP as a current jet moving to the east at a veyed - 13 000 km of the north-east Atlantic with continuous ADCP coverage. ADCPs are speed of over 0.5ms-'. For clarity only the currents at 101 m are shown although the therefore an invaluable mapping tool which ADCP measures currents every 8 m through- can be used to identify areas of interest in out the depth range of the section. The real time and thereby to identify. target- areas for more conventional sampling programmes. current vectors also show the presence of mesoscale eddies at 42' N, 44.25' N and Various types of information can be obtained 47.5" N - in this section the effects of these from ADCPs. Figure 1 shows a continuous eddies on biomass are masked by the strong section taken over 5'12 days and nights die1 migration. between 39" N and 54" N in the north-east Atlantic at a longitude of -35" W during May 1991. The section is some 1 500 km long and shows relative acoustic backscatter (dark

Figure 1 Relative acoustic backscatter (dB) along a Calibrating the acoustic backscatter from an ADCP section at 35' W in the north-east Atlantic. is not straightforward, as the instrument was not Increased backscatter reflects die1 migrations designed with this application in mind. Backscatter (A,B,C) and the presence of the polar front (D,E). plots such as those in Figures 1-3, are obtained by Above are current vectors at a depth of 101 m, subtracting the long-term mean backscatter within showing mesoscale eddies and a frontal jet. a depth interval (8) from each observation within The scale shown on both upper and lower axes is the interval (o), so giving relative highs and lows. the latitude in ON, and the small ticks on the lower We use a scale in decibels, so relative acoustic axis indicate the positions of data points. backscatter = 10 log,,(o/ii).

The effect on acoustic backscatter of r L - 20 cmls nightly depth (m) vertical migrations of zooplankton, and of a major front

.o latitude deg. N depth (m) Dynamic features and biological activity in the vicinity of the -Faroes Front, revealed by acoustic backscatter

64.0 64.5 65.0 65.5 latitude N

1200 0800 0400 0000 2000 - depth (m) Time (Hrs)

(6) 64.0 64.5 65.0 65.5 66.0 latitude N

Figure 2 Records from the Iceland-Faroes Front: smaller scale patches exist within these (a) acoustic backscatter (dB) showing enhancement layers. The effects of the thermocline are at a subsurface eddy (A) and die1 migration also seen - animals concentrating just below (B,C,DI; (6) temperature ("C) from a concurrent Seasoar tow showing the eddy (A) as a dome of this during the day but tending to concentrate cold water. within and above it during the night.

Figure 2(a) shows backscatter intensity over a Bioluminescence 18-hour period as Charles Darwin crossed the Bioluminescence provides another marker of Iceland-Faroes Front. Again, spatial and the biological contents of the ocean and temporal variability can be seen, with the consequently conveys information about its effect of die1 migration at B, C and D. Figures physical structure. In strategic terms it has 2(a) and (b) also show a correlation between a both benefits and dangers, depending on the subsurface eddy - identified as an upward use to which the information is put, and by dome in the temperature trace of the concur- whom. There are three main reasons why rent SeaSoar tow - and biomass (A in both naval strategists are interested in the figures). Here biomass is enhanced in the bioluminescence patterns of the ocean. The southern side of the cyclonic eddy - presum- first is to identify physical features (such as ably due to localized upwelling bringing fronts) which may have acoustic conse- nutrient-rich waters towards the surface. quences, the second is to follow the move- ments of submerged or surface vehicles, and Figures 1 and 2 show synoptic coverage of the third is to establish the background relatively large areas of ocean taken at speeds 'noise' which could interfere with optical of c. 8 knots, but at slower speeds finer scale communication under water. resolution is possible. Figure 3 (opposite) plots relative backscatter over a period of 80 Very many marine organisms, from the minutes at a ship speed of - 4 knots. The plot surface to the greatest depths, are shows that animals characteristically migrate bioluminescent. That is to say, they are able in layers which separate and rejoin, and that to produce light. This results from a special depth (m) 0 10.0000 50 Acoustic 8.0000 backscatter shows 100 how vertical 150 6'0000 migration can 4.0000 occur in layers 200 2.0000 250 0.0000 300 -2.0000 350

500; "''~"'''""'"'~''"l'il''~ 1 L_I_I__U_LJ I 15 30 45. 60 75 90 11.0 16.0 time minutes temperature C

Figure 3 Relative acoustic backscatter (dB) showing layers of die1 migration and the effects of the thermocline, which can be seen in the temperature profile (right) as a marked temperature discontinuity of -4 OC at a depth of -50m. (This section was taken in the .)

energy-producing chemical reaction which taltes place inside particular cells, and which is under the organism's control. Most energy-producing reactions result in heat; bioluminescent ones emit light instead.* The fact that the bioluminescence is under the organism's control makes it impossible to interpret bioluminescence data without some understanding of the biology. Not all marine organisms are bioluminescent; not all bioluminescent species respond to the same The alga Pyroc stimuli; not all individuals of a biolumines- can befray the cent species will give the same response to a presence of a submarine given stimulus, nor will they necessarily give similar responses at different times of a 24- hour cycle. The basic correlation between stimulus and response is filtered through the organism's physiology. To measure bioluminescence in a given volume of water a mechanical stimulus is most frequently used, usually presented in the form of rather ill-defined turbulence (cf. Figure 4. The assumption is made that this produces the maximum bioluminescent response of which the organisms in the water are capable. The sensor (photo-multiplier or photodiode) can be mounted in a towed instrument, where it will detect the lumines- cence in the water flowing past it; alterna- tively it can be in a static instrument package which incorporates a pump and turbulence- generating chamber and which can be hung on a vertical wire. A towed vehicle allows large-scale horizontal mapping, with a vertical component if the vehicle has an undulating pathway (as in the case of Seasoar, for example). A more detailed Figure 4 Upper Two specimens of the luminous vertical profile requires use of the static oceanic dinoflagellate Pyrocystis noctiluca. This package lowered on a vertical wire. Hull- photosynthetic single-celled organism is often the mounted instruments in surface vessels are cause of bioluminescence in the bow wave and limited to surface data. wake of ships at sea. (Photo: Image 3-0) Lower The bioluminescence of a dish of seawater containing Pyrocystis and stimulated by stirring. The turbulence in a bow wave, or round a *See Peter Herring's article, 'Biological light in the sea', submarine, would produce a similar, though more Ocean Challenge, Vol. 1, AutumnIWinter 1990. dramatic, effect. Croups of the Figure 5 The copepod crustacean Metridia is a brightly luminescen brightly bioluminescent animal. It sometimes copepod Metridia occurs in large enough numbers to provide visible can reveal the bioluminescence in the turbulent crests of breaking presence of fish or waves, to illuminate the bow-wave and wake of dolphins, surface vessels and to outline fish, dolphins or or of a submarine submarines.

front is approached it may be recognised by an increased bioluminescence signal. As a front has important effects on sound propaga- tion, advance (and silent) warning of its presence is therefore particularly valuable to a submarine commander. Perhaps the most crucial part played by bioluminescence in the decision-making of naval strategists is its potential for betraying the presence of a vessel at night (Figures 4 to 6). Luminous bow waves and wakes are a With instruments such as these, large areas of source of concern to those in blacked-out ocean can be surveyed, and attempts made to surface vessels during time of war. Similarly map the distribution of bioluminescence. the potential luminous trail left by a nuclear Large variations occur: particularly intense submarine below the surface cannot be signals are obtained from some tropical eliminated artificially, and if it can be de- coastal and slope regions, for example the tected from an aircraft or satellite provides Arabian Sea and Persian Gulf waters. Most potential enemies with a means of remote of the global information about biolumines- surveillance of the nocturnal movements of cence has been derived from the anecdotal such vessels. The attraction of such non- descriptive reports of bow wave and wake acoustic methods of detection is that the luminescence, sent with the meteorological vessel is unaware of the surveillance. An reports by merchant vessels. These reports advance knowledge of the depth distribution have clearly identified the seasonal fluctua- and abundance of bioluminescent organisms, tions in surface bioluminescence in particular and their sensitivity to disturbance, enables regions. The distribution of observations has the strategists to limit the danger of detection inevitably been biassed by the general by optimal routeing of the vessels. One emphasis on commercial shipping routes, optimist has even taken out a patent aimed at which do not necessarily accord with areas the prevention of bioluminescence. This of strategic interest. Detailed three-dimen- involves leaking detergent from the bows of a sional information on a smaller scale had to vessel, on the assumption that this will wait for the development of appropriate effectively reduce the turbulence generated instruments and their deployment on oceano- by its passage through the water! To our graphic cruises. This work has been led by knowledge this has never been tested at sea; Russian and American scientists responding we are confident that it would not work! to the strategic pressures of perceived mili- tary threats, particularly those of missile- carrying submarines. Enhanced productivity of surface waters is often associated with mixing at a front. The Figure 6 (Left) A small sample of a net catch of phytoplankton population responds rapidly to the luminous copepod Pleuromamma (each 2 this process and often includes numbers of individual is some mm long). (Right) The same sample photographed by its own bioluminescent dinoflagellates. Thus as a luminescence; individuals flash randomly as they begin to dry out.

Pleuromamma is another luminous copepod that could betray the presence of a vessel at night Optical communication between submerged video system uses an ISIT videocamera (the vessels, or between surface vessels and greatest sensitivity available) mounted in a satellites, is potentially practicable using manned submersible. The camera is focussed lasers. In order to achieve maximum range on a coarse mesh screen outside the submers- under water the light would have to be blue- ible and records the luminescence induced green, to which oceanic water is maximally by the impact of organisms on the screen as transparent. For precisely the same reason, the submersible moves through the water. marine organisms communicating by means The results can then be quantified by image of bioluminescence usually use blue-green analysis. light. The background bioluminescence The huge flow rate of HlDEX allows vertical therefore contributes to the optical noise in profiles to be recorded very rapidly and the the frequency range of most use. The prob- instrument can also be used in towed mode lem may be compounded by the organisms or attached to a mooring for longer-term responding to the laser, so that the signal deployment. The video method gives much stimulates additional noise. Many organisms more realistic indications of the natural (e.g. the copepod Metridia, shown in Figure responses of organisms in a particular com- 5) produce bioluminescence not only in munity. This is particularly valuable for response to mechanical stimulation but also those (such as the fragile gelatinous fauna) in response to light, and even to sound. that cannot be sampled in any other way. One example of the potential nuisance of The video studies have shown, to the surprise background bioluminescence was identified of most oceanographers, that there is little or in the DUMAND (Deep Underwater Muon no continuous background bioluminescence and Neutrino Detector) experiment in the in the ocean. The bioluminescent 'minefield' Pacific. A three-dimensional array of sensi- present in the midwater environment is tive photomultiplier tubes was to be moored revealed only by the movements and interac- on the sea bed to detect neutrinos by the tions of the inhabitants. Unfortunately, both (blue) Cerenkov radiation they produce along methods are very expensive and are unlikely their track in the water. These instruments to generate a database that will allow us with were just as sensitive to the background confidence to predict the absolute level of bioluminescence of organisms within the bioluminescence at any point in the world array, and elaborate processing was neces- ocean. Meanwhile, comparative measure- sary to filter out this biological 'noise'. ments will continue to be valuable, from whatever source. For all these applications a knowledge of the oceanic distribution of bioluminescence and Conclusions its seasonal changes is clearly vital. One of Bioluminescent sensing is not as 'remote' as the problems has been that different pumping that of acoustic techniques in that the poten- systems and towed instruments have different tial range is considerably less. Nevertheless, aperture sizes and different turbulence- datasets from both approaches give real-time generating characteristics. Quantitative data biological information on the same time- and from each of them are therefore not truly space-scales as hydrographic information. comparable and the datasets cannot simply The data suites comprise invaluable scientific be combined. Small-aperture pump systems information and can provide critical input to do not catch actively mobile animals effec- strategic decision-making. tively. Where such animals (e.g. small crustaceans) are important components of the potential bioluminescence of the area, the Cwyn Criffiths is head of the Ocean instrument will give misleadingly low results. Technology Division at the Southampton Similar underestimates may arise from a Oceanography Centre. His interests include limited degree of turbulence in the optical viewing the ocean with sound, and extending chamber, by 'pre-stimulation' of the organism the capacity and utility of in situ instruments. before it reaches the chamber, or by water flow so fast that the sensor only 'sees' part of Peter Herring is a biologial oceanographer the organism's response. specialising in bioluminescence and the role of ambient and biologically generated light in In order to address some of these difficulties the ecology of the deep ocean. two different strategies have been followed by Navy-supported researchers in the US. Howard Roe is head of the George Deacon One is to redesign pump sampling systems, Division for Ocean Processes at the South- the other to make in situ video-recordings of ampton Oceanography Centre. His interests the bioluminescence from submersibles. include the linking of biology and physics at the same time- and space-scales, using A new bathyphotometer system (HIDEX: High acousics coupled with concurrent net and Input Defined Excitation) combines a defined SeaSoar sampling. turbulent excitation with a very large volume flow (up to 40 litres a second), and can All three authors are supported by contracts measure both the absolute intensity along the with the Defence Research Agency to investi- flow path and the spectral characteristics of gate acoustic and bioluminescent variability the bioluminescence. The alternative in situ in the ocean. lGCP Project 367: Late Quaternary Coastal Records of Rapid Change

This new Project was adopted by the IGCP Board in January 1994 and the first lnternational Meeting tool< place in Scotland, 13-20 September 1994. On my return from that meeting I received a letter informing me that the Royal Society's Earth Resources Committee has decided that it would be appropriate for the UK to participate. I have accepted their invitation to become UK National Correspondent for Project 367 and organise a UK Working Group. Please find below a description of the Project and the workplan outlined at the lnternational Meeting. The first meeting of the UK Working Group was held in March at BGS, Keyworth, and attended by over 30 scientists. This group endorsed the 6 topics outlined as providing the framework for the UK contribution. The following UK meetings are planned - September 1996, South-West England; September 1997, Norfolk; May 1998 lslay and Jura. I invite you to participate in the project. If you wish to do so please complete both forms (photocopy the following pages as necessary) and return them to me, and also send a photocopy of the Membership Form for Directory to David Scott. In order to reduce circulation costs I will be distributing future information by Email whenever possible. Please enclose your Email address if you have one. A new Email listserv system has been set up for the lnternational Project. If you wish to register with it send the message: Subscribe your mailname to [email protected] I look forward to receiving your membership forms and hope to see you at one of our meetings. Best wishes, Ian Shennan

UI< National Correspondent for ICCP Project 367

Summary of lGCP 367

Short title: Late Quaternary Coastal Records of Rapid Change Full title: Late Quaternary Coastal Records of Rapid Change: application to present and future conditions Outline and main objectives: 1. To document and explain rapid changes (events that occur on the scale of seconds to 1000s of years) in the late Quaternary coastal zone. High resolution studies will be used to assess the impact of short-term events on global and regional coastal change. These data will be used to suggest scenarios for future coastal changes and help in planning for possible coastline problems. 2. To provide, in final volumes and national reports, a set of reference material that do cuments regional and global short-term coastal events, and explains how these events relate to present and possible events in the near future. 3. To develop and prepare, through international meetings, newsletters, common data-banlcs, etc., a common approach to these studies that allows comparison of data on a worldwide basis.

Project leader: David B. Scott, Centre for Marine Geology, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia B3H 3J5, Canada

Duration: Five years, from 1994

First workplan: To address some of the items in the proposal, developed at the meeting in Scotland. 1. Seismic events and tsunamis 2. Tidal amplitude changes 3. Storm surge history and change 4. Rapid sea-level change and response 5. Changes in sedimentation rate and response 6. New high resolution geochronological techniques lGCP PROJECT 367 MEMBERSHIP FORM FOR DIRECTORY

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GEOGRAPHIC LOCATIONS OF WORK: IGCP PROJECT 367 - UK WORKING GROUP

I wish to participate in the IGCP UK Working Group

Please send me further details of the 2nd International Meeting (Antofagasta, Chile, 19-26 November 1995) available now

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Date ...... / ...... / 1995 OCEAN

The Magazine of the Challenger Society for Marine Science

SOME INFORMATION ABOUT THE CHALLENGER COUNCIL FOR THE CHALLENGER SOCIETY 199516 SOCl ETY President The Society's objectives are: John Simpson To advance the study of Marine Science through University of Wales, Bangor research and education. Honorary Secretary ~alcolm'walker ' To disseminate knowledge of Marine Science with a University of Wales, Cardiff view to encouraging a wider interest in the study of the seas and an awareness of the need for their . Honorary Treasurer proper management. Charles Quartley Valeport Marine Scientific Ltd, Dartmouth To contribute to public debate on the development of Marine Science. Keith Brander The Society aims to achieve these objectives through Andrew Clarke a range of activities: Trevor Cuymer Holding regular scientific meetings covering all Tony Heathershaw (Press and Publicity) aspects of Marine Science. Barry Heywood (Membership) Supporting specialist groups to provide a forum for John Jones (Meetings) discussion. John Phillips (Secretary, Education Commitee) Publication of a range of documents dealing with aspects of Marine Science and the programme of Martin Preston (Chair, Education Committee; meetings of the Society. co-opted member) Alison Weeks John Williams Membership provides the following benefits: An opportunity to attend, at reduced rates, the biennial four-day U K Oceanography Conference and a range of other scientific meetings supported by the Society. Regular bulletins providing details of Society activi- ties, news of conferences, meetings and seminars (in addition to those in Ocean Challenge itself). A list of names and addresses of all members of the Society.

ADVICE TO AUTHORS Articles for Ocean Challenge can be on any aspect of oceanography. They should be written in an accessible style with a minimum of jargon and avoiding the use of references. If at all possible, they should be well illustrated (please supply clear artwork roughs or good-contrast black and white MEMBERSHIP SUBSCRIPTIONS glossy prints). ~anuscri~tsshould be double- spaced and in a clear typeface. The subscri~tionfor 1996 will cost £25.00 (f 12.00 for students in ;he UK only). If you would like to join the For further information, please contact the Editor: Society or obtain further information, contact The Angela Colling, Department of Earth Sciences, Membership Secretary, Challenger Society for Marine The Open University, Walton Hall, Milton Keynes, Science, c/o Southampton Oceanography Centre, Bucks MK7 6AA, UK. Tel: 01 908-653647; European Way, Southampton SO14 3ZH, UK. Fax: 01 908-6551 51. CONTENTS

Forthcoming Events The Oceanography of the Eastern Mediterranean Sea Michael D. Krom All change at Brent Spar John Wright Plus fa change Tony Rice Southern Ocean Fisheries: ... Present Status and Future Prospects Rarity: a biological conundrum Paul Rodhouse, Martin White and Martin Angel lnigo Everson

Professor Ray Beverton, CBE, FRS, The Discovery Collections: 70 Years Fisheries Biologist, 1922-1 995 of Sampling the Ocean's Fauna Martin V. Angel News and Views Now, There's a Funny Thing! Bioacoustics and Bioluminescence: 'Full many a gem ...' Tony Rice Living Clues for the Naval Strategist Howard Roe, Gwyn Griffiths and Book Reviews Peter Herring

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