Hyperfoliations on compact 3-manifolds with restrictions on the external curvature of leaves

C∞-foliations of codimension 1 on compact Riemannian 3-manifolds are studied. New classes of foliations, namely hyperbolic, elliptic, and parabolic foliations, are considered. Examples of such foliations are presented. In particular, aC∞-metric of nonnegative sectional curvature onS ³ such that the Reeb foliation is parabolic with respect to this metric is constructed. Analytic 3-manifolds with sectional curvature of constant sign admitting parabolic foliations are classified. Translated fromMatematicheskie Zametki, Vol. 63, No. 5, pp. 651–659, May, 1998. The author wishes to express his thanks to Professor A. A. Borisenko for his supervision, and to Yu. A. Nikolaevskii for useful advice in the process of preparing the present paper.