surveys in Cook Inlet, Alaska, and Mt. Hope Bay, Massachusetts. 

 The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and its 

 predecessors have operated the Tsunami Warning System as a 

 national service since 1948. The Alaskan RegionalTsunami System, 

 directed from Palmer, Alaska, was established to detect and locate 

 major earthquakes in the Alaskan-Aleutian region and provide 

 information and warnings to people in that region. The Tsunami 

 Information Center in Honolulu, Hawaii, ensures dissemination of 

 tsunami warnings and collects tsunami data on a real-time basis. 

 The detection network of the present Tsunami Warning System is 

 composed of 31 seismic stations and 47 supporting tide stations on 

 the shores and islands of 16 Pacific Ocean countries. The system 

 communicates through the facilities of the Federal Aviation Admin- 

 istration, the Defense Communications Agency, the National 

 Aeronautics and Space Administration, the National Weather 

 Service, and other government agencies, both domestic and foreign. 

 Although no large tsunami occurred in 1972, a tsunami watch was 

 issued after a large earthquake near Taiwan. In July 1972 a regional 

 tsunami warning was issued by Palmer Observatory after a major 

 earthquake near Sitka, Alaska; only a minor tsunami resulted from 

 this seismic disturbance. 



Major Research Projects 



Last year's Federal Ocean Program noted that the decade of the 

 1970's would see plans of the previous decade begin to bear fruit in 

 the form of experiments, programs, and valuable data. This 

 prediction has been amply confirmed by the progress achieved in 

 continuing efforts and by the initiation of several promising new 

 programs. 



One of the primary goals of the NSF's International Decade of 

 Ocean Exploration is support of research fundamental to improved 

 description and prediction of the marine environment. Knowledge 

 about ocean circulation is critical for predicting the ocean's influence 

 on weather, climate, and pollutant dispersal in the ocean, but 

 detailed understanding of circulation has largely been limited to 

 currents such as the Gulf Stream and the Kuroshio, which follow 

 continental boundaries. The Mid-Ocean Dynamics Experiment 

 (MODE] seeks a more detailed understanding of fluctuations in 

 ocean circulation by combining oceanographic observations with 

 sophisticated numerical theory to establish the dynamics and 

 statistics of medium-sized eddies, their energy sources, and their 

 role in the general circulation of the ocean. The MODE-I field 

 experiment, underway between March and July 1973 just south of 

 Bermuda, involves five United States vessels, the R.R.S. Discovery 

 from England's National Institute of Oceanography, and an 

 extensive array of moored instruments. 



The North Pacific Experiment (NORPAX) will investigate the 



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