äQ 
B 1 
PHYSICAL-OCEANOGRAPHICAL DATA 
(Koltermann, Prahm) 
B 
1.1 General 
The Iberian Basin, situated betwem the Iberian 
Peninsula and the Acores-Biscay Rise, is bounded in 
the South by the East Acores Fracture Zone and the 
Madeira-Tore Rise; therefore, it is separated from 
the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, Embedded in this deep-sea 
basin, the Iberia Abyssal Plain lies about 200 nauti“— 
cal miles westwards of the Portuguese coast, with 
water depths of somewhat more than 5,300 m, It extends 
westwards as far as longitude 15, and its North-South 
extension is from 42° N to 40° N. In the direction of 
the coast the Abyssal Plain is bounded by seamounts — 
lying isolated outside the Shelf - and by the Galicia 
Bank; in the South, by the Tore Seamount (see Fig. 1b, 
after Laughton, Roberts, and Graves, 1975). In the 
North, a deep connection to the Biscay Abyssal Plain 
exists in the form of the Theta Gap between the Coruna 
Seamount and the Galicia Bank. 
The sediments of the Iberia Abyssal Plain origi- 
nate partly from the Biscay Abyssal Plain, but the 
material also comes partly from the Canyons of the 
Portuguese Shelf, such as —- for example — from the 
Nazar6 Canyon (Laughton, 1968). 
It was intended to make investigations in the 
Iberian Basin, and especially in the Iberia Abyssal 
Plain, concerning 
a) The vertical structure of the watermasses, and 
the spatial and temporal variability. 
The currents and their variability in the indi-—- 
vidual water layers; particularly in the near- 
bottom.