Book Description

This report describes the oceanographic methods used, and lists in tabular form the results obtained, on Expedition SCOT in the eastern tropical Pacific. This expedition, conducted in April, May and June, 1958, by the Scripps Institution of Oceanography with the co-operation of the Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission, was the first of a series of cruises devoted to the oceanography of the United States tropical tuna fishing region. These cruises are part of a program of investigations carried out by the Scripps Institution under contract to the U.S. Bureau of Commercial Fisheries. The main object of the expedition was to study the distribution of ocean properties in the region as a whole at a different season and with greater coverage than in any former expedition. The survey extended from San Diego, California, to latitude 5°N. Properties measured or computed were: weather conditions, temperature, salinity, density, thermosteric anomaly, dynamic height anomaly, dissolved oxygen concentration, inorganic phosphorus concentration, the attenuation of diffuse submarine daylight, incident solar radiation, chlorophyll a, standing crop of zooplankton, standing crop of small nekton, surface current direction and velocity (by GEK), and primary production rate. Additional information presented includes a summary listing of bathythermograph observations and of organisms captured in night-lighting operations. Some preliminary results of analysis of data, including experiments made aboard ship on the growth of ocean phytoplankton in response to various combinations of added chemicals, are given.