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cold water. After passing the resulting samples through 0.2-µm filters, the
researchers had measured the radioactivity with a liquid scintillation
counter, and then calculated the newly reproduced bacterial cell numbers.
Extracellular enzymatic activities had also been tested.
For the macrobenthos, sampling gear such as 50 by 50 cm box
corers had been used, along with various grabs, dredges and beam
trawlers. Subsampling had been done with cylindrical subcores in five
sections: from the surface to 2 cm, 2-4, 4-6, 6-8 and 8-10 cm. Animals had
been passed through wire-mesh sieves made of stainless steel or bronze
gauze. The resulting samples had been fixed and preserved with 10%
formalin, stained with rose bengal solution, and then identified and
counted. Other subjects of investigation had been species composition and
abundance, spatial distribution patterns and vertical distribution in the
sediment. Epifauna on the surface of manganese nodules had been
observed, along with other macrobenthic animals, by deep-sea camera
systems.
For the meiobenthos, the sampling gear had consisted of various
grabs, box corers and multiple corers. Subsampling had been done with
cylindrical subcores, and samples had been sieved using mesh sizes of
1000, 500, 350, 125, 63 and 32 µm. Samples had been fixed and
preserved with 10% formalin or glutoraldehyde, and then the specimens
had been concentrated, extracted, stained, identified and counted under a
microscope. Species composition and abundance had been investigated,
along with spatial distribution and vertical distribution in the sediment.
Specimens from about 40 genera of copepods had been collected
but, as they had not been easy to identify down to the species level, they
had been classified by genus. Zooplankton abundance ranged from
maxima in the thousands to minima in the order of single digits per cubic
metre. The copepods had been the most dominant taxonomic group,
consisting of up to 60% of the total.
Methods for chemical oceanography
Sampling, sample storage and quality controls for chemical
oceanography research had followed methods of seawater analysis by
Grasshoff et.al. 3 Seawater had been sampled with Niskin bottles attached
to CTD rosette systems and the samples kept at less than -10° C until
analysis. Nutrient content had been measured by spectrophotometry
methods according to Parsons or Grasshoff and others 4 . Nitrate and
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