Antarctic Map Folio SeriesVIVIAN C. BUSHNELL

American Geographical Society

The preparation of this series of map folios, begunin 1962, continues. Of the 18 folios planned, 8 havenow been published or will be before the end of1967. The following five appeared in 1966 and 1967or will be published later this year:

Folio 4: The Antarctic Atmosphere: Climatologyof the Troposphere and Lower Stratosphere, platescompiled by the National Weather Records Center;text by W. S. Weyant.

This folio includes maps devoted to the seasonalthermal regime, atmospheric circulation patterns, andtropopause heights. In addition, graphs are presentedof seasonal relative-humidity values and monthlytropopause temperatures and heights.

Folio 5: Terrestrial Life of Antarctica, maps andtext by S. W. Greene, J. L. Gressitt, D. Koob, G. A.Llano, E. D. Rudolph, R. Singer, W. C. Steere, andF. C. Ugolini.

Maps show where plants and land arthropods havebeen found in Antarctica, and a sheet of color photo-graphs presents representative biota in their naturalsettings. The text describes characteristics of the en-vironment and discusses the geographical distribu-tion of the biota.

Folio 6: Structure of Antarctic Waters Between20°W. and 170°W., by Arnold L. Gordon.

This folio presents maps of "core layers," dynamictopography, and the "Polar Front Zone." The corelayers depicted are temperature minimum, temper-ature maximum, oxygen minimum, salinity maxi-mum, potential temperature minimum, and deepoxygen maximum. Fourteen plates are included.

Folio 7: Glaciers of the Antarctic, by John Mer-cer. in press.

Maps, text, and tables summarize obtainable in-formation on the glaciers of the oceanic islands andmountains of the Antarctic.

Folio 8: The Antarctic Atmosphere: Climatologyof the Surface Environment; plates compiled bythe National Weather Records Center; text by W.S. Weyant. In press.

This folio includes a map of mean annual temper-atures and maps of -mean seasonal cloud amounts,monthly cyclone tracks, and wind roses. A series ofplates is devoted to graphs of wind and temperatureconditions, days with blowing snow, and total cloudamounts.

The folios are for sale by the American Geo-graphical Society, Broadway at 156th Street, NewYork, N. Y. 10032.

SUPPORT SERVICES

Role of the Smithsonian OceanographicSorting Center in Antarctic Research

H. A. FEHLMANN

Smithsonian Oceanographic Sorting CenterSmithsonian Institution

The Smithsonian Oceanographic Sorting Center(SOSC) has participated in the U.S. Antarctic Re-search Program (USARP) since 1963. Its principalcontribution is one of service to the scientists engagedin studies of the natural history of Antarctica andthe surrounding oceans. Under a contract with theNational Science Foundation, SOSC functions as theprime recipient, sorter, and distributor of the wealthof biological material being collected under the au-spices of USARP.

To date, SOSC has received more than 5,500 sam-ples of antarctic and subantarctic fauna and flora.These samples include specimens of vertebrates,planktonic, nektonic, and benthic invertebrates, andalgae. Each sample is sorted into taxonomic groups;the level of sorting is dependent upon the require-ments of the systematists or ecologists receiving thecollections.

Although the majority of the SOSC samples havebeen taken aboard Eltanin, SOSC has also receivedcollections from two of the Deep Freeze expeditionsand from the 1963 Antarctic Peninsula survey of sitesfor the permanent Palmer Station. Many of these lat-ter collections have already been processed and dis-tributed. Of the tremendous volume of specimensreceived from the first 27 Eltanin cruises, SOSC hassorted a total of 2,172 samples containing 10,968,-047 specimens. Most of the specimens are currentlybeing studied by systematists, both in the UnitedStates and foreign countries. Preliminary reportsof investigations in progress indicate that the ant-arctic region is yielding many species new to sciencein addition to providing considerable ecologicaland distributional data on familiar organisms. How-ever, taxa are still available for study by systematistsinterested in the antarctic fauna.

SOSC is now planning to expand its sorting of theantarctic biota to include the meiofauna. Microscopicorganisms of the upper sediments in most areas arenot well known, but knowledge of the antarctic meio-faunal communities is nonexistent.

SOSC contributes another service to USARP byproviding trained technicians for shipboard collecting

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