CTD and rosette sampling casts were taken on surveyed area. Conductivity (SBE-4,3x10
S/m initial accuracy), temperature (SBE-3/F, 1.0x10
°C) and oxygen (SBE-13, 4.3x10
l
), PAR (depth 
1000m), light transmission and fluorimetry data were collected by a Seabird SBE 11 PLUS using the SEASAVE V5.33 software. The pressure data were measured by a ParoScientific Digiquartz (0-6000m, accuracy 0.1%). Data were acquired at 24Hz and the descent rate was aproximately 1 m/s, much less when close to bottom or on interesting interfaces. To facilitate the handling of the equipment during the coring operations, the Bottle Caroussel and some sensors were removed.
The conversion from pressure to depth on the SEA-SAVE software was done at latitude 42N. The WHOI-UNESCO package was also used for converting to the 42N for comparison. DGPS NMEA Position data were interfaced directly to the CTD acquisition systems (see Tables 6and Fig. 3).
The binary data were converted to the CNV and ASCIIOUT (for CTD) formats and further plotted with the ODV software [Schlitzer(2004)]. The Sound Velocity data from the acquired profiles were made available for import into the SIS Software for multibeam data acquisition and corrections.