OCEANOGRAPHY IN THE UNITED STATES 303 



material will be, and consequently cannot guess at how many times 

 we set casing, we can neither quite tell you the beginning of the hole 

 nor the end of the hole. We have to do some experiments first. 



Mr. DoRN. What do you contemplate as the width at the beginning 

 of the hole? 



Mr. Bascom. That is what I say. The ultimate hole we cannot tell 

 you. In our experimental work at first we will probably start with a 

 hole something like 18 inches in diameter, although that is certainly 

 a wide open question, too. It might be much less, something like 

 10 or 12 inches in diameter. 



You have to go out and get some information about the character 

 of the strata first, and then you come back and revise your ideas about 

 how often you will have to set casing, and so forth. 



It may be that these dense rocks which give us the high seismic 

 velocities and depths will be so rigid they will stand up very nicely 

 without casing, in which case we can go on for quite a long way with 

 a slim hole. 



This will speed up the drilling considerably. 



If I may amplify some things that were said earlier. 



Mr. Miller. Yes. 



Mr. Bascom. You asked about the many kinds of technologies and 

 scientific disciplines that were involved in this. 



On our central committee it seems as though we have a large selection 

 of people from the local Geological Survey, and the Office of Naval 

 Research. 



Actually we have these three other panels which spread out much 

 wider into the entire fields of geophysical sciences. 



Among others, the kinds of people we have to ultimately draw on 

 for advice and information and assistance in this project we have to 

 talk to, for example, astronomers and people who know about meteor 

 studies because the qualities inside the earth are probably similar 

 to those of other planets. 



It seems to us a little strange to go off 350,000 miles to the moon 

 to get a sample of what may likely be 30 miles beneath our feet. 



We have to talk to people who know a lot about volcanoes because 

 obviously you get some idea of the interior of the earth from what 

 comes up from volcanoes. 



We have to be involved with various other kinds of geologists, 

 including paleantologists who trace out the evolution of history on 

 earth through changes in fossils and also to stratigraphists who know 

 something about the qualities of the layers in the earth who essentially 

 designate the various periods of geologic time. 



We have to deal with gravity people who study the earth's gravity 

 at many places and from this partly determine the thickness of the 

 crust. 



We have to talk to seismologists, both the earthquake type seismol- 

 ogists and those who shoot off their own explosions and measure the 

 character of the crust. 



We have to know something also about the earth's magnetic prop- 

 erties. Each of these takes a highly specialized person, and so for our 

 committee to have all the competence needed we just could not do it 

 with the Central Committee, and we have panels which deal with these 

 various aspects of scientific work. 



