Fig. 1. Barrow Peninsula, Alaska sketched from photographs and showing the locations of the various bodies of water. THE MARINE NATURE OF NUWUK LAKE AND SMALL PONDS OF THE PENINSULA OF POINT BARROW ALASKA*

S INCE July 1952 when thousands of the amphipod Gammarus setosus were discovered in windrows along the northwest shore of Nuwuk Lake a study has been carried out on this halocline lake and the small ponds on the end of the peninsula of Point Barrow, Alaska. Physical and chemical characteristics of the small ponds Barrow peninsula extends as a narrow gravel spit running nearly northeastward from the mainland and ending at the north in an expanded area. The longitudinal axis of the peninsula roughly halves this distal expanded portion (Fig. 1). The higher southeast side is covered with tundra and the lower northwest side is composed primarily of sand and gravel with a few plants. A few ponds lie in the tundra, but there are more than twenty in the lower area. The shallow ponds on the tundra side having bottoms of black sulfide mud, lacked active macroscopic organisms in 1953 and were not studied thereafter. Based on the stability of their basins two groups of ponds can be recognized on the sand and gravel side of the peninsula, a transient and a persistent group. The transient ponds are formed by a seasonal reworking of the sand and gravel along the shore (Rex 1955, MacGinitie 1955). They are most *These studies were aided by contracts between the Office of Naval Research, De-partment of the Navy and the University of Southern California, and between th