Primary production in coastal waters

Abstract

The data on primary production from the Bay of Bengal and the Andaman Sea are very meagre. The Danish Galathea Expedition during her round-the- world cruise, made some measurements across the Indian Ocean through the equatorial current system and in the Bay of Bengal, of which two stations were from the Andaman Sea. It was observed that in the eastern part of Bay of Bengal, the lower bound ry of the photosynthetic layer was between 84-99 ra and the stations located on the shelf were characterised by a high rate of production. In the Galathea report (Steemann Nielsen and Jensen, 1957), it was concluded that the monsoon shift has some influence on the rate of production in the Bay of Bengal and that extensive investigations during the different seasons are necessary in order to get a true picture of the production of organic matter.