On the Nature of Continental Shelves

By John J Walsh

On the Nature of Continental Shelves discusses continental margins using techniques of systems analysis applied on minicomputers. The book describes insights and theories of mechanisms of enhanced primary production at the continental shelves, emphasizing these as the source energy, food, and recreation, and a possible means to detect global change while in its early phases. The text explains circulation, equations of motion, Ekman dynamics, and baroclinic effects of vertical changes in water density. Production in the seas involves the process of photosynthesis by organisms in which instruments on aircraft platforms can measure salinity and chlorophyll fluorescence. During photosynthesis, some of the light energy absorbed by phytoplankton pigments is emitted as fluorescence, at longer wavelengths, which can then detected. Adult fish and crustaceans are mobile and add a biological vector to the physical movement of organisms on the continental shelves. The book examines food limitation and the conditions of the Bering Sea, the Mid-Atlantic, and the Gulf of Mexico. The text also investigates sinking losses, present depocenters, atmospheric forcing, eutrophication, overfishing, and the effects of climate on primary production at the continental shelves. The book can be beneficial for students of meteorology, oceanography as well as to marine ecologists, biologists, and environmentalists.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Academic Press
• Release date: Sep 17, 2013
• ISBN: 9781483258324

John J Walsh

After graduation with an A.B. in Biology from Harvard College in 1964 and a Ph.D. in Marine Science from the University of Miami in 1969, John J. Walsh served as: Research Assistant Professor of Oceanography in the University of Washington during 1970-1975; Head of the Oceanographic Sciences Division and tenured Oceanographer at Brookhaven National Laboratory during 1975-1984; Graduate Research Professor during 1984-1991 and Distinguished University Professor during 1991-2016 at the University of South Florida. As an expert on the systems ecology of continental shelves, he has written/edited two books and >100 other publications over the last 45 years. He has also been a Guest Investigator at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution during 1980-1983; received a Gold Medal of Science, University of Liege in 1980; Chaired the NASA Ocean Color Science Working Group in 1981-88; and elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science since 1990.

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