Abstract:

Marine biological and environmental investigations were carried out on the coastal water of Great Wail Station(62°13'S, 58°58 W) on King George Island, Antarctica, from November 17, 1988, to March 3, 1989. Coastal fast ice covered inner part of Great Wall Bay until mid-December 1988, which allowed us to take ice core sampling and observations from mid-November to early December 1988. During thisperiod, ice thickness ranged from 90 to 70 cm with about 20 cm of snow cover. About 5cm brown layer occured in the middle part of fast ice core collected on November 20, 1988 at site 2, and two brown layers occured in the interior of ice core collected on November 17,20 and 26, 1988 at site 5. In comparison to the water column, chlorophyll-a concentration in fast ice was higher, which ranged from 2.55 go 56.84mg/M3, and most of them were concentrated in the interior layers of sea ice rather than in the bottom layer often observed in other sea ice areas, such as in Syowa, Davis, Casey Station and McMurdo Sound areas, etc. This might be a result of the difference in structure and formation processes of sea ice. Meanwhile, temperature, transparency, nutrients and chlorophyll-α in water column were measured. Microalgal assemblages both in fast ice and water column of Great Wall Bay were reported.