398 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1961 



As they watched the uncoiling ink lines and the quivering gages, 

 the drillers were learning what takes place when more than 2 miles 

 of pipe is hung in water, what effects the ship's pitch and roll produce, 

 and how much vibration is set up by ocean currents and pipe rota- 

 tion. As one remarked, "This is like. hanging a piece of spaghetti 

 from a 12th-floor window to the sidewalk, and then trying to drill 

 a hole with it." 



The drilling was the first at-sea experiment for Project Mohole, a 

 5- to 10-year nationally funded effort to drill through (ho earth's 

 crust to sample its interior, the largest and least-known area on earth. 

 Mohole is supported by the National Science Foundation and is a 

 combined effort of the Nation's leading scientists and engineers work- 

 ing through the AMSOC Coimnittee, organized in 1958, and the Na- 

 tional Academy of Sciences-National Research Council. 



The project takes its name from Andrija Mohorovicic, a seismol- 

 ogist born in Croatia in 1857, who determined from earthquake waves 

 the existence of a seismic discontinuity. This discontinuity was later 

 shown to be worldwide and has been accepted by most geologists as 

 the boundary between the crust of the earth and its denser interior 

 mantle. The discontinuity was named after its discoverer and, as is 

 the wont of Americans, is commonly abbreviated to "Moho," 



Drilling in the deep ocean long was regarded as impossible because 

 of the fundamental limitations of existing methods and materials. 

 It was only with the comparatively recent development and use of 

 drilling ships by the petroleum industry, in coastal waters off Cali- 

 fornia, that deep-water drilling could be considered seriously. 



Of all ships developed for offshore work, the most suitable to the 

 purposes of deep-water experimental drilling was the CUSS /, a 260- 

 foot converted Navy freight barge, owned by the Global Marine Ex- 

 ploration Co., Los Angeles. Deriving its name from its original 

 joint owners, the Continental, Union, Superior, and Shell oil compa- 

 nies, the ship represented a multimillion dollar teclinological develop- 

 ment by the petroleum industry. 



The 3-year theoretical work of the AMSOC Committee on the 

 problem of deep-sea drilling represented a bold attack. By late 1960, 

 the work had reached the point at which it was necessary to test their 

 concepts at sea. These concepts were based on existing drilling 

 technology but depended upon the solution of new problems such as 

 keeping an unanchored vessel stationary over the drill site, enabling 

 the ship's pilot to determine accurately the ship's position in relation 

 to the hole, and drilling with an extremely long drill string without 

 casing. 



The first problem, that of positioning the ship, was solved by em- 

 ploying four outboard motors, powered by 200-horsepower diesel 



