Abstract
The Strait of Gibraltar has a long tradition of political and scientific uniqueness. Twentieth-century submarine warfare added the ocean's depth as a new dimension for those wanting to control and understand the Strait. During the Cold War the surveillance of this chokepoint became urgent and entangled with local disputes predating the two-blocs conflict, in particular the sovereignty of Gibraltar for which Spain and the United Kingdom competed. This paper explores a number of transnational research programs on ocean dynamics at the Strait and discovers a network of collaborating researchers who used, and went beyond, international institutions such the International Geophysical Year and NATO. In the process, the Western Mediterranean was constructed as a key maritime place for global ocean circulation, both as a factor to North Atlantic convection and as a model through which to understand it.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 429-459 |
| Number of pages | 31 |
| Journal | Historical Studies in the Natural Sciences |
| Volume | 46 |
| Issue number | 4 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - Sept 2016 |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© 2016 by the Regents of the University of California.
Keywords
- Geopolitics
- Gibraltar
- NATO
- Oceanography
- Sovereignty
- Surveillance