55 



or acclamation. When formal votes are taken, it is often for the purpose 

 of publicly affirming the existence of consensus, and the announced vote is 

 thus usually unanimous. 



Hotly-contested issues do arise, primarily in the panels and working 

 groups, which operate on a simple one-person, one-vote basis. These votes 

 rarely, if ever, split on national lines. The divisions are scientific: 

 proponents of competing hypotheses, enthusiasts for particular drill sites, 

 or practitioners of different disciplines often disagree, but national 

 origins seem not to have much to do with it. 



This is not to say that the voting rules are meaningless. The "qualified 

 majority" rule stands as a constant reminder that concerns of member 

 countries must be reasonably dealt with. In JOIDES management issues, a 

 slightly less-than-perfect decision that enjoys the support of all of the 

 participating countries is usually preferable to an "ideal solution" which 

 seriously offends the needs or sensibilities of one of them. 



THE RATIONALE FOR COLLABORATION 



Scientific ocean drilling is an international program for five reasons: 



- It is forefront science; 



- It demands state-of-the art technology; 



- It operates worldwide; 



- It is expensive; 



- It requires large amounts of scientific manpower. 



It is worth spending a few minutes looking at these forces in some detail, 

 because they may point to criteria applicable to other programs. 



1. ^P.ientific ExceTlence . 



The first condition can not be over-emphasized: the program is engaged in 

 excellent and exciting research . DSDP came along just at the time that the 

 theories which we now subsume under the rubric of plate tectonics had begun 

 to gain intellectual respectability. It is hard to realize that only 20 

 years ago, the prevailing theory held that the continents and ocean basins 

 had been permanent features of the earth from the beginning of geologic 

 time. By the 1960's these assumptions were being challenged. But it was 

 not until the voyages of GLOMAR CHALLENGER that there was direct proof of 

 the validity of the new ideas. DSDP samples have proved that the ocean 

 basins are young; that the six continents were once a single land mass; and 

 that the creation and destruction of crustal materials are ongoing 

 processes. The history of ocean drilling is thus inextricably linked with 

 the plate tectonics revolution -- one of those rdre scientific events that 

 provides an entirely new and different approach to understanding the 

 universe. 



The difference between the excitement in OOP planning today and in the 

 period of new discovery which characterized the first years of DSDP is 

 slight. Plate tectonic theory is still young, with much that is unknown. 

 Its practitioners are developing process-oriented studies and models which 

 will not only describe but quantify and eventually predict the dynamics of 

 the earth. By any measure, is still forefront science, followed closely by 

 all earth scientists everywhere. 



