LIFE IN AN OCEAN DESERT

Evening Post, Volume CXVI, Issue 145, 16 December 1933, Page 23

LIFE IN AN OCEAN DESERT

FINNY INHABITANTS OF A MYSTERIOUS AREA

The mysterious "marine desert," a low-oxygon area of the Pacific Ocean, is inhabited with animal life, natural scientists of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography have announced, says an overseas paper. ■ The so-called "desert",is a stratum in the Pacific Ocean, at a depth of approximately 500 metres (1666 feet), where the water contains only about 5 per cent, oxygen. At first, oeeanographors believed that no animal life could live in th;s low-oxygen realm, but recent tests, made off Point Arguello, California, by Mr. Eogcr E. Bo-velle,-research assistant at the University of California's institution at La Jola, revealed that thousands ot! minute organisms are swimming about in water containing only a trace of air. This condition probably obtains in about two-thirds of tJio Pacific Ocean, according to Dr. E. G. Mobcrg, a famous chemical oeeanographer and acting director of the institution who had charge of last summer's tests. Dr. Moberg pointed out that other tests, made in the vicinity of Puerto Eico 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. Eevelle spent several days aboard the Pioneer, United States Government Coast and Geodetic Survey steamer, making tests of temperature, salinity, and oxygen and jilankton content of the sea. He established five stations at various points from tho mainland, neat Santa Barbara, to about 150 miles at sea, so as to obtain two cross sections of the strong California current. Lowering closing nets into the ocean to n depth of about 700 metres, Mr. Kevelle pulled them slowly through the

so-called "desert" to a depth of slightly less than the 500-motro mark. Then he closed the nets, and brought 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. Later tests off the mainland in the vicinity of the San Clemente and Catalina Islands, conducted personally hy Dr. Moberg, indicate that the presence of plankton is more .closely related to foodstuffs than to oxygen. The area below the 500-700-metre line, for example, was found to contain more oxygen, but less animal life. Mr. E. H. Fleming, another research assistant of tho institution, aboard the U.S.S. Hannibal, conducted the oxygen content tests oif Costa Eica and Panama. These experiments indicate that the "desert" contains less oxygen as one travels towards tho equator. The studies of tho flow of the strong California current are still incomplete, according to Dr. Moberg. "The study of these sub-surface currents is important because these cur* rents 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. Mobcrg continued. "By taking the temperature and determining the salinity of the ocean at several given points, we can compute the direction and speed of the water. We arc now working out the toports on the salinity and temperature." The recent testa made by the La Jolla institution may throw additional light on the commercial fishing problem because they will deal with the fertility; of the sea.