We used a combination of buoy tracking, intensive hydrography, satellite thermal imagery, and moored current meters to resolve the structure of eddies at the shefbreak front in the Middle Atlantic Bight south of New England. Eddylike features were always present at the front in our study area throughout the 15-day period of observations in June 1984. We found that hydrographic features in our across-shelf hydrographic transects that appeared to represent the detached parcels of shelf water often reported in the literature were, in fact, part of the three-dimensional structure of shelfbreak eddies. Adequate alongshelf resolution, in particular, enabled us to determine that no detached parcels were present. The two prominent features of the eddy groups we found were plumes of lighter shelf water that protruded into slone water, curling ''backward'' opposite the direction of mean shelf flow, and neighboring cyclones with warmer, saltier slope water in their cores, partly or wholly encircled by the plumes. The plumes have the potential especially for producing vigorous across-front exchange of heat, salt, and nutrients and may play roles analogous to the ''squirts'' found on the California shelf. ¿ American Geophysical Union 1988