American Geographical Society

The American Geographical Society's Serial Atlas of the Marine EnvironmentAuthor(s): Wilfrid WebsterSource: Geographical Review, Vol. 51, No. 4 (Oct., 1961), pp. 570-574Published by: American Geographical SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/213109 .

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THE AMERICAN GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY'S SERIAL ATLAS OF THE MARINE ENVIRONMENT

WILFRID WEBSTER

The sea is a wilderness. Threadbare though that phrase may have become in po- etic literature, it still expresses an overwhelming fact. The sea is a mysterious wilder- ness, full of secrets. It is inhabited only by wild animals and, with the exception of a few special situations, is uncultivated ...

Although we have conquered the land as we have conquered our ignorance about it, the problem of conquering the sea is much more formidable and complex. The sea cannot be cleared or plowed, sown or fertilized, or set apart for the exclusive use of the desired animals and plants. The open sea will probably always be essentially a wild place, and we who concern ourselves with it had best accept that fact. But as we be- come more intimate with the world of the sea, and with the natural laws governing its inhabitants, we can develop a science of exploiting its resources and to that extent the sea need not remain a complete wilderness.

T HtIESE paragraphs from Dr. Lionel A. Walford's provocative book' express the

philosophy that underlies the American Geographical Society's "Serial Atlas of the Marine Environment." This challenging and long-range project is now in

full operation, and a report seems timely. The Society has for many years recognized the compelling need for a survey of the

marine environment, and the part that maps would necessarily play in such a survey. In

1953 preliminary consideration was given to the idea of a loose-leaf atlas of the marine

environment, specifically prepared as a research tool. Existing marine atlases, of which the most notable have been published in the Soviet Union, the Netherlands, Britain, France, and

Japan, are excellent, but are generally based on published information now outdated and are meant to serve as reference, not research, tools. They are too limited in scope, too

generalized, and too small in scale to be useful for integrating advanced research relating to marine environments. The Society's initial discussions with oceanographers concerning a new atlas met with an enthusiastic response, but because of the pressure of other commit-

ments, work on the atlas was temporarily set aside. In May, 1958, shortly after the publication of his book mentioned above, Dr. Walford,

then director of the Atlantic Fishery Oceanographic Research Center of the United States Bureau of Commercial Fisheries, independently approached the Society with a

proposal for the cooperative production of a new atlas of the marine environment. This

support was welcomed. In February, 1959, Dr. Walford spoke before the Committee on

Oceanography of the National Academy of Sciences-National Research Council, and the Committee's 1959 report on ocean resources emphasized the necessity for systematic ecological mapping of the oceans. The Committee considered the Society to be particu- larly well fitted to undertake the atlas, and it established a Panel on the Marine Environ-

ment, which has worked closely with the Society in the many phases of setting up the

I Lionel A. Walford: Living Resources of the Sea (New York, 1958), p. ix.

> MR. WEBSTER is Project Director of the Serial Atlas.

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ATLAS OF THE MARINE ENVIRONMENT

Serial Atlas, initially to be restricted to the North Atlantic. The members of the Panel are Max J. Dunbar, McGill University, Canada (chairman); Lionel A. Walford, United States Fish and Wildlife Service (secretary); T. W. M. Cameron, Macdonald College, Canada; J. Lockwood Chamberlin, United States Fish and Wildlife Service; Arni Frid- riksson, International Council for the Exploration of the Sea; Harry Hess, Princeton Uni-

versity; Charles B. Hitchcock, American Geographical Society; Sidney J. Holt, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations; Columbus O'D. Iselin, Woods Hole

Oceanographic Institution; O. M. Miller, American Geographical Society; Colin S.

Pittendrigh, Princeton University; and Ernest F. Thompson, Yale University.

THE INVENTORY OF SOURCE MATERIALS

If the sea is a wilderness, still full of secrets, it is nevertheless a wilderness that man has

long sought to understand. A great deal of information has been accumulated through research, but too often data are not readily available to researchers. They are scattered

among many institutions and private collections, and the very existence of much of the material has remained unknown except by those immediately associated with it. Although some of the material has been studied, with a varying degree of thoroughness, an astonish-

ing amount has not been studied at all. To meet the obvious need for a guide to such research materials, the Society has under-

taken an inventory of data pertaining to the marine environment of the western Atlantic continental shelf. This continuing inventory will provide background material for contri- butions to the Atlas and will furnish institutions and individual scientists intelligence by means of which exchanges of specimens and information may be facilitated. The inventory is being carried out by Rear Admiral Charles W. Thomas (United States Coast Guard, retired).

The Society and the Panel on the Marine Environment recognize that, as the Serial Atlas program matures, they must encourage the preparation of Atlas studies in areas where source material is available but unworked. So far as possible, the studies must reflect a balanced effort by all oceanographic disciplines.

THE BASE MAPS

An essential feature of the Serial Atlas project has been the preparation of a new series of outline base maps by the Society, under the direction of Mr. O. M. Miller, Assistant Director, and Mr. William A. Briesemeister, Senior Cartographer. A requirement for all contributions to the Atlas will be that these base maps be used as work sheets for the plot- ting of data. Among other advantages, this will simplify the task of drafting the final maps for reproduction and publication.

After considerable study, it was decided that the base maps (Fig. 1) would be on a single oblique stereographic conformal projection centered at 54? N., 38? W. The Society had this projection specially computed, with the use of modern high-speed computing equipment, in 1959. Drafting went forward steadily, and the task is now almost completed. Eighteen sheets have been published, all printed in nonphotographic blue on fine translu- cent paper. The sheets have a one-degree grid of latitude and longitude and show coast lines and major rivers. Sheets 1 to 14 cover the North Atlantic and adjacent seas and are

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THE GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW

FIG. i-Layout of base maps.

on the nominal scale of 1: 2,500,000. Sheets 15 and 16 cover the Arctic Basin and adjacent seas and are on the nominal scale of 1: 5,ooo,ooo. Sheet 17, which combines Sheets 15 and 16, is on the nominal scale of 1: 1o,ooo,ooo. Sheet 18, which covers the Atlantic from Greenland to the equator, is on the nominal scale of 1:20,000,000. It is expected that Sheet 19 will complete this large undertaking; it will cover the entire North Atlantic and the Arctic Basin. If the need develops, other base maps on the same projection will be prepared-on larger scales for intensive work in small areas and on smaller scales for purposes of generalization.

This important series of base maps is already being put to active use. The Society has filled more than a hundred orders, of various sizes, in response to requests not only from many individuals and institutions in the United States but also from Canada, Mexico, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and West Germany. The largest shipment so far, comprising eighty copies each of Sheets 9 and lo, has gone to the Food and Agriculture

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ATLAS OF THE MARINE ENVIRONMENT

Organization in Rome, for use in the preparation of its first contribution to the Serial Atlas.

THE ATLAS FORMAT

The Serial Atlas will be an unusual journal. Each Folio, separately issued, will be a

study of some aspect-biological, geological, physical, or chemical-of the marine en- vironment. As such, it will be the means by which important data that otherwise might remain little known will be made generally available, and each Folio will contribute its small share in fostering interdisciplinary communication and in encouraging more precise correlations.

A Folio will consist of a map or a series of maps, an accompanying text, references to source materials, statistical tables, and other elements as required. The double-spread for- mat, 25 2 by 16 inches, permits the inclusion of two-page maps when necessary. The Folios will be bound in a cover of durable blue paper, and on the front cover will appear the title, the author's name, and the serial number. This format resolves several problems, the most important of which has been the need for flexibility, for a design that can easily incorporate a variable number of maps and variable amounts of accompanying text, ref- erences, and other material. It was also considered desirable that double-page maps not be

split.

THE FIRST ATLAS FOLIOS

The initial Folio accepted for publication consists of a manuscript and more than fifty maps dealing with the "Sea Surface Temperature Regime in the Western North Atlantic 1953-1954," by Robert L. Pyle, meteorologist with the United States Bureau of Com- mercial Fisheries. The study analyzes a great volume of surface temperature observations collected by commercial vessels at sea, and develops techniques for converting these data into meaningful descriptions of the temperature regime. It demonstrates how this ma- terial is useful for bringing out detailed patterns not attainable otherwise and points out features of the data pertinent to their usefulness for environmental research.

The second Folio, now in preparation, is a biogeographic study of the clam Spisula polynyma, by J. Lockwood Chamberlin, United States Fish and Wildlife Service. This study is designed not only to show where the species lives-its total geographic distribu- tion-but also, by mapping the distribution of limiting environmental factors, to show why it lives where it does. A more general objective is to develop techniques for predicting the occurrence or nonoccurrence of marine species in unexplored waters. Other Folios by American scientists are a study of "Average Temperatures at a Depth of 200 Meters," by F. C. Fuglister of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, and a study of the surface circulation of waters on the continental shelf from Cape Breton to Cape Hatteras, by Dean F. Bumpus, also of Woods Hole. The Project Director would welcome inquiries from scientists who are preparing research studies that could be considered for publica- tion as Folios of the Atlas.

INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION

The Serial Atlas has already been given the sponsorship of the Royal Society of Canada. It is also most encouraging to report that the Food and Agriculture Organization

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574 THE GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW

of the United Nations will cooperate fully with the project, through its Fisheries Biology Branch. This Branch, which is headed by SidneyJ. Holt, a Panel member, has initiated a series of regional fisheries Oceanographic Synopses, designed to summarize available data

relating to the oceanographic features of the environment of fish stocks. These synopses, which will be produced in collaboration with the World Meteorological Organization, will also summarize the data on sea and weather conditions which, in various ways, affect

fishing operations. The first synopsis, on the North Sea, is now in preparation and will be submitted for publication as an Atlas Folio. Scientists representing the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea will participate actively in the preparation of the

synopsis. Thus the Society's hope that contributions to the Serial Atlas will be truly international is already being realized.

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