And if funding is made available the Bermuda Biological Station for Research will play a major role in the experiment in 1998.

Bio Station scientists met with 18 American scientists over the weekend to look over the elaborate scheme.

And they are expected to meet with their European counterparts at the Bio Station next year.

All that will depend on whether they receive funding from the United States for the experiment which has already been six years in the planning.

Bio Station director Dr. Tony Knap explained that the Bermuda Atlantic Time-Series Study (BATS) is part of a larger international programme called the Joint Global Ocean Flux Study (JGOFS).

Both studies look at the role of carbon in the ocean and the part that the oceans play in the regulation of carbon dioxide, a major gas in the "Greenhouse Effect'' which is causing global warming.

The experiment will take place over an area of 10,000 square miles in the ocean off Bermuda. Dr. Knap said: "It will involve a number of ways to take measurements including ships, satellite and the use of remote-controlled submarines.

"Provided this is funded, we will see this experiment off Bermuda some time in 1998.'' The US planning group have been putting together models of how the experiment will be carried out. It included representatives of the University of California, the Woods Hole Institute, Princeton University, the University of Miami and Harvard.

Then the group will join together with the European group which includes representatives of the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Holland and Italy.

Dr. Knap said: "We are writing a report on this meeting and then we will put it forward to the US steering committee. We need four to five years to make sure we get the thing done properly.

"It needs plenty of planning. This will be a huge experiment because there are still a number of puzzles that need to be solved.

"It is always the same, the more we discover the more mysteries appear for us to solve.

"If this whole thing is going to be cracked it is going to be cracked off Bermuda because we have so much information already.

"The follow-up meeting will be held a year from now, but this weekend's meeting was very rewarding.''