by Vladimir AVILOV, Dr. Sc. (Tech.), Svetlana AVILOVA, Dr. Sc. (Biol.), chief research associates of the RAS Institute of Oceanology named after P. Shirshov The World Ocean is one of the few unique natural complexes on the Earth. It is many-sided: it rouses genuine interest and admiration, its depth and power heats up imagination, it can be home, food and safe shelter for its inhabitants. Water surface of the World Ocean covers approximately 71 percent of the Earth and is full of enigmas even today. And it is no wonder: man traversed seas and oceans, fished there for thousands of years, but its studies began only three centuries ago. Marine science arose with the development and implementation of new technologies: methods and devices to measure depths (plummet) and take water samples (sampler), successfully carried out by Admiral Stepan Makarov (1849-1904), founder of national oceanography. Achievements made in the branch of marine science we are speaking about–bio-geochemistry–are also attributed to the development of innovative research methods. Chemical research works started with the discovery of an exceptional property of the ocean water body–constant salt composition that, according to many scientists (for example Alexander Vinogradov, member of the USSR AS (from 1953), specialist in the field of analytical chemistry and geometry), remained unchanged for the last 250 mln years. Even though this hypothesis was first formulated by English chemist Robert Boyle in the 1670s, it still has no comprehensive scientific substantiation. стр. 26 The 1970s are considered a milestone in national marine science. Thus, in the course of numerous expeditions on the ships of scientific fleet, national scientists gathered an immense volume of actual data published in 1997 on the initiative of Andrei Monin (Academician from 2000), Director of the RAS Institute of Oceanology named after P. Shirshov, in a ten-volume monograph Oceanology. It included the ... Читать далее