They are not deallocated means:

As soon as the sort operation is done (for which it aquired the extent) the extent is not going to be released or deallocated but, will be released only when other sort operation needs extent for sorting and there is no extent to allocate. That moment the extent will be released which was used for prior SORT operation.

Thats what I See from the explaination you mentioned above.

[Edited by sreddy on 03-08-2001 at 05:23 PM]