Abstract: A high intake, defined excitation, vertical profiling survey bioluminescence bathyphotometer system designed to measure, from a statistically significant sample with a calibrated hydromechanical stimulus, (1) the bioluminescence of phytoplankton and zooplankton organisms in the oceanic water column to depths of 400 meters in absolute units of photons per second per volume (intensity) or photons per volume (total flux), (2) the concentration of bioluminescent population in flashes per volume, (3) the average light intensity per bioluminescent event, and (4) population flash dynamics.

Abstract: A torque balanced cable for towing or suspending oceanographic instrumenton includes a data transmission core about which is wound a helically laid inner layer of load bearing strands formed of high tensile strength, low stretch aramid fiber and having a selected pitch angle, pitch diameter and strand thickness. An outer composite layer is contrahelically wound about the inner layer and an interposed, abrasion resisting barrier film layer, and includes alternating load bearing strands and non-load bearing filler strands, the other load bearing strands having the same degree of pitch angle and thickness as the inner strands and of a number that bears substantially the same ratio to the number of inner strands as the pitch diameter of the inner layer bears to the pitch diameter of the outer layer.