Geology of ocean basins, continental slope, shelf and coastal environments. Major sediment types and distributions. Sediment transport and deposition. Interactions between fisheries resources and physical, biological, geological and chemical oceanography, as well as climatological, and meteorological conditions. Topics include recruitment, transport, natural mortality, predator-prey relationships, competition, distribution and abundance.
Emphasis is on early life history of fishes.
Applications to world's commercial fisheries are cited. A survey of biological processes emphasizing organic matter synthesis and transfer including topics essential to a basic understanding of contemporary biological oceanography. Primary and secondary production, standing stocks, distribution, and structure and dynamics of phytoplankton and zooplankton populations. The transfer of organic matter to higher trophic levels, food webs, nutrient cycling, especially but not exclusively nitrogen, phosphorus and silicon, microbiological process relevant to nutrient cycling, and heterotrophic production, benthic communities coastal ecosystems, the influence of organisms on the composition of seawater, particularly with reference to oxygen and carbon dioxide regimes. Aspects of regional oceanography.