Abstract:

The information on benthic organisms and the geochemical environment obtained from the Chinese First Exploration on Antarctic Ocean and its succeeded analytic works.The results shows that in the circumstances of the studied area in which the bottom water is plentiful in dissolved oxygen and the surface sediments is in weak oxidation(manganese oxides as dominated oxident) ,benthic organisms grow well while the prosperity of the animals are limited below5-1 0 cm of the profiles in which the environment is controlled by sulfate reducing reaction. It is the result of evolution for the characteristics of the main benthic organisms under the special circumstance in studied area.On the condition of low temperature of the Antarctic Ocean,the solubility of carbonates is higher than that in otherocean's,but the concentration of calcium in overlying water and porewater is not higher than that in other ocean,which may results in the difficulty forthe crustacean and molluscs to obtain sufficient calcium to form their solid crust.Furthermore,there is a certain relation between the amount of sedentary polychaetes and the temperature in overlying waters. That might demonstrate that the animals had still not quite adjusted to the extremly cool of the Antarctic Ocean,however it should be left for furtherwork.Besides,the research proposed thatthe number of the microorganisms is controlled by the amountof active organic matters in the sediments.