290 OCEANOGRAPHY IN THE UNITED STATES 



R6sum6 of the Professional Activities of Gordon G. Lill, Chairman of the 



AMSOC Committee 



Born February 23, 1918, in Mount Hope, Kans. 



Educated at Kansas State University (M.S., 1946). 



Conducted geological studies on Bikini Atoll (1947). 



Joined Geophysics Branch of the Office of Naval Research in 1947. 



In 1949-50 took year's leave of absence to conduct a mineralogical survey in 

 Liberia, West Africa. 



Head of Geophysics Branch of ONR, 1951 to px-esent. 



U.S. delegate to CSAGI conference in Brussels (1955) (Commite Special An- 

 nee Geophysique Internationale). 



U.S. delegate to CSAGI conference in Moscow (1958) . 



Chairman of U.S. IGY Technical Panel on Oceanography. 



Member of U.S. IGY Arctic Panel. 



Recipient of Distinguished Service Avpard in Science, Kansas State Uni- 

 versity (1957). 



Author of numerous articles including: "The Earth's Mantle," Science, May 

 1959 (with Maxwell), "AMSOC's Mohole," Nature, July 1959 (with Bascom). 



Speaker on the Deep Hole project at the Undiscovered Earth Conference in 

 Birmingham, Ala., June 1959. 



Mr. Bascom. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 



A complete roster of the members of tlie AMSOC Committee is 

 inserted at the close of this prepared statement. 



I would like, also to introduce two members of our panel and our 

 Committee who are present here. One is Captain Harry Hess, who 

 is present today and who is a member of the AMSOC Committee and 

 one of the originators of the idea. 



The other is John Lyman, of the Hydrographic Office, a member 

 of one of our panels. 



Mr. Miller. We want to welcome Captain Hess and Mr. Lyman 

 here. We are happy to have them with us. 



(Submitted statement of AMSOC Committee follows :) 



1. The AMSOC Committee is composed of distinguished earth scientists 

 whose names and organizations are given on the attached roster. AMSOC 

 is the abbreviated form of the American Miscellaneous Society which, although 

 it selected its name in a moment of whimsey, takes the Mohole project seriously. 

 The National Academy of Sciences is a private nonprofit organization of sci- 

 entists chartered by Congress in 1863 to advise the Government on scientific 

 matters. 



The AMSOC Committee is at present operating with funds supplied by the 

 National Science Foundation under Research Grant NSFG5731 which reciuires 

 that a study be made of the feasibility and desirability of drilling a hole to the 

 Mohorovicic discontinuity. 



2. The Committee has completed that study and is now preparing a final 

 report to the National Science Foundation on the findings. These include the 

 opinion that such an exploratory hole is both feasible and highly desirable. 



This is only the beginning of the Committee's work. So many scientists 

 and technicians of different disciplines and from different institutions are 

 involved that the NAS itself is deemed the most appropriate organization to 

 manage this complex project. Moreover, the academy is organized in such a 

 way that it is a convenient mechanism for integrating the various forms of 

 public and private support. Therefore it has been decided to consolidate the 

 management of the project under this Committee and an appropriate staff is 

 now being assembled. 



3. A concept of the earth is necessary in order to understand the meaning 

 of the Mohole project. The earth has a radius of about 6,400 kilometers and 

 is divided into two main zcmes, the core and the mantle. Although the mantle 

 represents about 84 percent of the earth by volume we are not sure of its 

 composition. Above the mantle is a thin slaglike crust of light rocks and over 

 part of that crust there is a film of water called the ocean. 



The continental crust averages ab<»ut 33 kilometers thick; the oceanic crust 

 about 12 (including the water). The boundary between the crust and the 



