WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The antarctic continental shelf lies under seasonal or perennial ice and is consequently difficult to study. The shelf, slope, and rise together cover some six million square kilometers, and the transformation and ventilation of waters beneath this sea ice affect the Southern Ocean as a whole and ultimately the properties and circulation of the deep global ocean.

These interactions are of such a wide ranging nature that they are best studied in an interdisciplinary and international fashion. In "Ocean, Ice, and Atmosphere: Interactions at the Antarctic Continental Margin," editors Stanley S. Jacobs and Raymond F. Weiss have assembled 20 articles by more than 50 authors to do just that. The volume is number 75 in the American Geophysical Union's Antarctic Research Series.

"Ocean, Ice, and Atmosphere" presents new study techniques, reinterprets existing data, expands previous summer-only observations into new year-round measurements, and suggests longer term cycles than previous records had permitted. Included with the book is a new 1:3,000,000 bathymetric chart of the southern Weddell Sea, a region discussed in several of the papers.

ISBN 0-87590-910-8 Cost: $52.50 (AGU members), $75.00 (non-members) Available from the American Geophysical Union by phone: 800-966-2481 (from outside the U.S.A., +1-202-462-6900), or from the AGU web site: www.agu.org.