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The nature and distribution of power sources of the sea other than petroleum are discussed, along with possible entrées for their use. Waves, tides, currents, and salinity and temperature gradients all have the potential to contribute useful power. Submarine geothermal sources, salt domes, ice, and other marine-associated concentrations may be more important. There are opportunities to employ these marine power resources directly rather than for contributions to power grids or power-intensive products. Ancillary employment of the seawater as a coolant and of the sediments below the seabed for the disposal of nuclear wastes may be even more important uses than employment of the power that the sea contains.

By utilizing the vapor pressure difference between high-salinity and lowsalinity wvater, one can obtain power from the gradients of salinity. This scheme eliminates the major problems associated with conversion methods in which membranes are used. The method we tested gave higher conversion efficiencies than membrane methods. Furthermore, hardware and techniques being developed for ocean thermal energy conversion may be applied to this approach to salinity gradient energy conversion.

Calculations indicate that a typical oil-bearing salt dome along the Gulf Coast of the United States contains more energy in its salt than is present in its oil. The magnitude of the potential salinity gradient energy is even greater when all of the salt domes are considered.

On 24 January 1968, a transient deep-circulation event was recorded by a triangular array of autonomous current recorders installed 3 meters above the bottom at two of the three positions and at intervals of 3 to 1000 meters above the bottom at the third position in a depth of 3950 meters above the relatively smooth floor of the eastern North Pacific. The event interrupted a 24-hour record of relatively steady but peculiar conditions, lasted for about 1(1/2) hours, and was followed by current directions and speeds that greatly differed from those of the initial period. The event occurred over a volume of the sea of at least 2 kilometers in horizontal dimensions and 1 kilometer thick. Associated with the event were many small clockwise-rotating features extending from 3 to at least 1000 meters above the bottom and a rapidly increasing current velocity at 1000 meters. The event was probably local and may have involved convective motion, internal waves, and the passage of front. Some of the changes in horizontal velocity may have resulted from the combined effects of upwelling and the earth's rotation.

A baited camera has recorded a lysianassid amphipod that is twice as large as the largest amphipod previously recorded. The locality for this mobile omnivore is the sterile bottom of the eastern North Pacific Ocean, at a depth of 5304 meters.

The theoretical possibility of self-supporting cables extending into space from earth and from extraterrestrial rotating or revolving bodies is examined. In principle, augmentation (and duplication) of the installation and the launching of masses into orbit or into space could be accomplished with energy derived entirely from the rotation of the central body. In practice, a portion of the total energy requirement would probably be supplied by simple mechanical devices.

Some 70,000 larvae of the California sardine, collected from about 10,000 plankton hauls over the years 1950 to 1957, have been sorted by lengths and enumerated. The numbers of the day-caught larvae are very closely a numerical measure of the apparent mortality as indicated by the night-caught larvae. Over a considerable interval of size, the night-caught larvae appear to be representative of the entire larval population, but the day-caught larvae may represent a fraction that is a measure of the natural mortality of the population.

Studies on the coast of Baja California show that oceanic zooplankters carried into shallow water provide abundant food for resident predators. The vertically migrating zooplankters apparently are vulnerable when they encounter the sea floor in shoal areas. This ecologically significant mechanism may be of importance to fisheries and military operations.