Hot Brines and Recent Heavy Metal Deposits in the Red Sea

Cooperative research ventures between some new ones, such as a telemetering pin- oceanographic institutions and nations to- ger for getting a continuous temperature day frequently start with a series of official profile and a thermoprobe accurate to meetings, councils, and so forth, followed 0.005 DegreesC. by several years of research, and finally a When the R. V. CHAIN returned home, group of papers ernerging in various techni- there were requests from many laboratories cal journals. The study of the Red Sea is an around the world for sediment samples to exception to this procedure. It is a good analyze. These requests were filled insofar example of the kind of spontaneous cooper- as was possible without exhausting all avail- ation that can occur when individual scien- able sample. tists get excited about a unique problern and Although the hot brine and heavy metal work together exchanging samples and data deposits cover an area of less than 100 and publishing their final results in a single square miles, they are clearly part of a volume. The problern ofthe hot holes ofthe larger geological scheme. The world-wide Red Sea required real teamwork from scien- interest in rift valleys and sea floor spread- tists of many different disciplines as well as ing with their attendant hydrothermal and different nationalities.