The Kuroshio: A Symposium on the Japan Current

Like the Gulf Stream in the Atlantic, the Kuroshio is one of the principle currents in the Pacific and is of vital concern to the fishing industries of Asia. Although it has been under intensive study since the late nineteenth century, oceanographers and fishery scientists have long recognized the wide gaps in their knowledge of this productive oceanic system. In the early 1960’s, an effort was begun to full in some of these gaps when the Cooperative Study of the Kuroshio and Adjacent Regions (CSK) was established under the auspices of UNESCO. The fisheries investigations of CSK were sponsored by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. Eleven nations cooperated in the study: the Republic of China, Indonesia, Japan, Republic of Korea, Republic of the Philippines, Republic of Singapore, Thailand, United Kingdom (Hong Kong), USA, USSR, and the Republic of Viet-Nam.
Field work began in 1965 and, by 1968, a total of 98 oceanographic cruises had been completed. At times as many as 19 vessels of various nations were working simultaneously in the region under a coordinated plan of operation. In May, 1968, a symposium was held at the East-West Center, University of Hawaii, at which the scientific results of the CSK were reported. This volume includes 58 of the papers presented at that symposium and covers such a subject fields as physical and chemical oceanography, fish and fisheries, planktonology and bottom topography of the sea.