"The techniques for using otoliths for annual age determinations in fish are well established (Williams and Bedford 1974). The roughly seasonally alternating pattern of opaque material deposition during fast growth and hyaline material deposition during slow growth, allows researchers to assign an annual age to the fish. pannella (1971, 1974) discovered finer increments in the otoliths and suggested they represented the daily growth. Brothers et ale (1976) later confirmed the daily periodicity of the increments and using SEM showed that these increments were the smallest cyclical units found in the otolith of Engraulismordax. These increments are composed of incremental and discontinuous units. The discontinuous unit is relatively less calcified and is mostly composed of the protein otolin while the incremental unit is mostly composed of aragonite (Campana and Neilson 1985)"--Introduction, paragraph 1.

Technical Memorandum

National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS)