The hydrography of the Gulf of Venezuela
Redfield, A.C. (1955). The hydrography of the Gulf of Venezuela, in: Papers in Marine Biology and Oceanography. Dedicated to Henry Bryant Bigelow, By His Former Students and Associates on the occasion of The Twenty-fifth Anniversary of the Founding of The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution 1955. Deep-Sea Research (1953), 3(Supplement): pp. 115-133
In: (1955). Papers in Marine Biology and Oceanography. Dedicated to Henry Bryant Bigelow, By His Former Students and Associates on the occasion of The Twenty-fifth Anniversary of the Founding of The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution 1955. Deep-Sea Research (1953), 3(Supplement). Pergamon Press: London & New York. 498 pp., meer
In: Deep-Sea Research (1953). Pergamon: Oxford; New York. ISSN 0146-6291; e-ISSN 1878-2485, meer
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| Abstract |
The distribution of salinity, temperature, oxygen, and total phosphorus in the Gulf of Venezuela is described. The physical circulation appears to consist of two estuarine cells. The first is generated by the outflow from Lake Maracaibo, which terminates in a mixing zone over the sill off Calabozo Bay, where the water which occupies the deeper basin of the Bay is formed. The second is fed by water formed in this mixing zone which escapes seaward after mingling with more saline water drawn in from subsurface layers of the Caribbean. The semi-diurnal components of the tide are augmented by resonance in the Gulf of Venezuela, and with the wind account for the vertical mixing which occurs over the sill of Calabozo Bay. The trade winds, which predominate in winter, produce large seasonal differences in mean sea level across the Gulf, and control the distribution of the brackish water as it moves seaward from the outlet of Lake Maracaibo. Upwelling, which occurs in the lee of the Peninsula of Paraguana, is accompanied by an accumulation of phosphorus and a depletion of oxygen in the deep water near the coast. Similar conditions are found in the basin of Calabozo Bay. The influence of countercurrents on the biochemical circulation is discussed. |
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