OCEAN LIFE

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 3, Issue 724, 27 December 1933, Page 2

OCEAN LIFE

MYSTERIOUS DESERT BIG STRATUM IN PACIFIC ALMOST WITHOUT OXYGEN. STRANGE LIFE FORMS. The mysterious "mardne desert," a low-oxygen area of the Pacific Ocean, is inhabited with animal life, natural scientists of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography have anounced, says an overseas paper.-

The so-called "desert" is a stratum in the Pacific Oc,ean at a depth of approximately 500 metres (1666 feet), whare the water contains only about 5 per cent. oxygen. At first, oceanographers believed that no animal life could liyei in this low-oxygen realm, but recent tests, made off Point Arguello, California, by Mr. Roger R. Revelle, research assistant at the University of California's institution at La Jola, revealed that thousands of minute organisms are swimming -about in water containing only a trace . of air. The conditions probably obtain in about two-thirds of the Pacific Oeean, J according to Dr. E. G. Moberg, a famous chemical oceanographer and act- ' ing director of th& institution, who had charge of last summer's tests. Dr. Moberg pointed out that other tests, made in the vieinity of Puerto Rico and Panama, showed an even lower oxygen content in the "desert" zone, indicating the possibility that no life exists at that stratum. In conducting his experiments, Mr. ' Revelle spent several days ahoard the Pioneer, United States Government Coast and Geodetic Survey steamer, making tests of temperature, salinity, and oxygen and plankton content of the sea. He established five stations at various points from the mainland. near Santa Barbara, to about 150 rniles at sea., so as to obtain two cross sections of the strong Califomian current. s Lowering closing nets into the ocean at a depth of about 700 metres, Mr. Revelle pulled them slowly through the so-called "desert" to a depth of slightly .less than the 500metre mark. Then he closed the nets, and ibrought them to the surface for examination. In the nets he found plankton animal life measuring; from about a twentieth of an inch to one inch in size, proving that the strange. low-oxygen dominion was inhabited. * Results from Research. j Later tests off the mainland in the I vieinity of the San Clemente and I Gatalina Islands, conducted personalS ly by Dr. Moberg, indicate that the | presence of plankton is more closely | related to foodstuffs than to oxygen. | The area below the 500-700-metre I line, for example, was found to con1 tain mor.e oxygen, but less animal 1 life. I Mr. R. H. Fleming, another rei search assistant of the institution, | aboard the U.S.S. Hannibal, conduct- | ed th& oxygen content tests off Costa 1 Rica and Panama. These experiments | indicate that the "desert" contains S less oxygen as one travels towards the equator. The studies of the flow j of the strong Californian current are still incomplete, according to. Dr. Moberg. "The study of these sub-surface currents is important because these currents have a great deal to do with the ocean's influence on climate and with the distribution of plankton," Dr. Moberg explained. "We used indirect methods to determine the flow of these sub-surface currents," Dr. Moberg continued. "By taking the temperature and determining the salinity of the ocean at several given points, we can eompute the direction and speed of the water. We are now working out the reports on the salinity and temperature." The recent tests made by the La Jolla institution may throw additional light on the commercial fishing pro- | blem because they will deal with the I fertility of the sea.