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Science 8 August 2003:
Vol. 301. no. 5634, pp. 772 - 773
DOI: 10.1126/science.1086924
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Perspectives

Also see the archival list of Science's Compass: Enhanced Perspectives

OCEANS:
Enhanced: Sounding Out Ocean Fine Structure

Barry Ruddick

Measurements from ships have indicated that intrusions--alternating layers of warm and cool water--play a key role in ocean mixing. "Salt fingers," features just 10 cm in diameter, are implicated in the transport of these 20-m-thick water layers. In his Perspective, Ruddick highlights the report by Holbrook et al., who have used seismic profiling to image the small-scale layering in the ocean at an unprecedented level of detail. The new seismic method should help to determine the precise mechanism of ocean mixing.

The author is in the Department of Oceanography, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, B3H 4J1 Canada. E-mail: barry.ruddick{at}dal.ca

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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)