ABSTRACT
If one were to refer to the Meteor Atlas (Defant, 1936), which illustrates so impressively the hydrographic observations that were made by the German Atlantic Expedition of 1925-1927, the tongue-like spread of the Mediterranean water into the North Atlantic would seem to emanate from an apparent “epicentre” near Cape St Vincent (37°N:9°W) rather than from the Strait of Gibraltar itself (36° N:6° W). The maximum values of salinity and temperature that are quoted for this “transposed source” occur at a depth of 1000m and are somewhat in excess of 36.4‰ and 12 °C. This representation of the Mediterranean water intrusion into the Atlantic therefore suggests that, in the initial stages of the outflow there is a preference for the undercurrent to follow a fairly direct and restricted route towards Cape St Vincent with little lateral dispersion, and it is only beyond this point that the more uniform tongue-like divergence continues into the open ocean.
