ports U.S. participation, both Federal and non-Federal, in selected major 

 oceanographic research efforts that will contribute to better understanding, 

 preservation, and utilization of the global ocean for the benefit of the United 

 States and other nations. Coordination with governmental agencies is 

 achieved through the Interagency Decade Planning Group, and nongovern- 

 mental coordination is provided by panels of the National Academies of 

 Sciences and Engineering. 



The IDOE program supports large research efforts to: determine the 

 quality of the ocean environment through accelerated scientific observations 

 of the ocean's natural state, evaluate the impact of man's activity on that 

 environment, and establish a scientific basis for corrective actions necessary 

 to preserve the ocean environment; provide the scientific basis needed to 

 improve environmental forecasting; assess the sea floor for its resource po- 

 tential; provide the basic scientific knowledge of biological processes neces- 

 sary to intelligently utilize Living marine resources; and improve the 

 scientific framework necessary to reach sound international agreements on 

 man's uses of the oceans and the resources located therein. 



To insure that data and results of IDOE programs are available to the 

 entire scientific world, NSF supports NOAA's Environmental Data Service 

 (EDS) for data handling and its National Oceanographic Instrumentation 

 Center (NOIC) for testing, evaluating, and calibrating selected prototype 

 instruments used by IDOE projects. 



International scientific coordination has been provided by the Scientific 

 Committee on Oceanic Research (SCOR) of the International Council of 

 Scientific Unions and an IOC Advisory Body. As part of the IDOE program, 

 the NSF assists these international bodies to bring members of the inter- 

 national scientific community together to consider and plan projects. Direct 

 scientist-to-scientist communication continues to be very influential in formu- 

 lating sound international IDOE research proposals. 



Projects designed to meet IDOE program objectives fall into four major 

 categories: Environmental quality, environmental forecasting, seabed assess- 

 ment, and living resources. 



Environmental Quality 



The Geochemical Ocean Section Study (GEOSECS) research team will 

 make detailed measurements of oceanic characteristics along Arctic and 

 Antarctic longitudinal sections in the Atlantic and Pacific at all depths to 

 provide, for the first time, a set of physical and chemical data measured on 

 identical water samples. The studies will establish geochemical baselines for 

 long-term reference and provide input for quantitative studies of oceanic 

 mixing and for descriptive oceanic circulation models. The multiyear project 

 involves 13 U.S. laboratories as well as scientists, laboratories, and ships from 

 Canada, France, the Federal Republic of Germany, India, Italy, and Japan. 

 The U.S. portion of GEOSECS will operate from the Woods Hole Oceano- 

 graphic Institution in the Atlantic and the Scripps Institution of Oceanog- 

 raphy in the Pacific. The past year has been devoted to preparing the ship- 

 board sampling and analysis program for the 9-month expedition scheduled 

 to start in the Atlantic in July 1972. Shore laboratories have been built 



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