Marine Science Affairs 



marine sciences legislation, the Council assigned to its Committee on Ocean 

 Exploration and Environmental Services responsibility to begin to develop 

 comprehensive Federal plans in 1 968. To supplement agency staffs, both for 

 planning purposes and for the United States' portion of international explora- 

 tion, a small staff will be funded initially by the Marine Sciences Council. 



Planning will consider both environmental prediction and exploration. 

 National needs will be considered for observation and prediction services 

 related to marine weather, sea state, tides and currents, including estuarine 

 and coastal effects, state of the upper water column and thermocline, migra- 

 tion of principal current boundaries, tsunamis, and sea and lake ice. The 

 plan will consider ways to fulfill these needs by defining goals, milestones, 

 priorities, supporting air-sea interaction studies, technical facilities, and in- 

 strumentation, and the optimum combination of oceanographic ships, ocean 

 buoys, aircraft, and spacecraft re:juired in a national effort. 



The special role of ships of opportunity will be considered. Over 2,000 

 merchant ships, American and foreign, including over 900 United States 

 flag ships, and over 800 United States Navy ships, make certain kinds of 

 marine meteorological and oceanographic observations. Limited biological 

 observations have also been made by ships of opporunity. The plan will con- 

 sider obtaining more complete data from a selected number of these ships 

 to complement data obtained from other sources. 



The kinds of projects being considered for the program are : 



— delineation of the migration and movement patterns of major com- 

 mercial fish stocks ; 

 — fishery exploration in currently unexploited areas ; 

 — acquisition of data relating fish distribution to environmental factors 



as a basis for providing fishery prediction services ; 

 — preparation of small-scale topographic, geological, magnetic, and 

 gravity maps of the Continental shelf and slope to identify poten- 

 tial mineral and fuel resource areas ; 

 — preparation of geophysical and topographic maps of selected areas of 



the deep ocean floor; 

 — coring and drilling surveys of the continental margin and deep ocean 



floor in selected areas ; 

 — facilitating data exchanges (following the objectives outlined in 



Chapter IX) ; 

 — determination of the origin and dynamics of ocean current systems; 

 — investigations of heat exchange and transport, air-sea interaction, and 



air mass modification ; 

 — studies of storm genesis, propagation, and waves. 

 Planning will be accomplished in close consultation with the National 

 Academies of Science and of Engineering, and other scientific and industrial 



110 



