Fouling of ship hulls and buoys is a biological problem distinct 

 from that of the deterioration of submerged structures by boring 

 organisms. Two approaches are being used by Navy investigators to 

 study fouling problems: studies of the entire fouling community and 

 studies of specific organisms such as barnacles. Experimental 

 studies on the dynamics of fouling communities, which include 

 barnacles, sponges, hydroids, and algae, are concerned primarily 

 with the identification and understanding of the processes that 

 change the abundance of species over time. 



Barnacles are among the most common, widespread, hardy, and 

 persistent fouling organisms. Thus, in studies of the biology of 

 individual fouling organisms, barnacles have traditionally been 

 extremely useful. It has been known for years that they attach 

 themselves to the substrate, whether it is a boulder or a ship's hull, 

 with a cement secreted by specific glands. Studies on the extent to 

 which the activity of the cement cells of adult barnacles may be 

 associated with the molting cycle involve the development of 

 techniques for the culture of the barnacle's living cement cells in 

 culture dishes. A major accomplishment has been the successful 

 maintenance of individual cement gland cells for periods up to 13 

 days permitting detailed study of their productive processes. 

 Previous attempts to culture tissue from marine invertebrates were 

 largely unsuccessful. 



Ocean Engineering 



The collection of environmental data for weather forecasting and 

 underwater acoustic prediction purposes is a major requirement of 

 the Federal Ocean Program. The requirement can be met 

 economically only by ocean moored or drifting data buoys, relaying 

 data by radio from known positions. A prototype system has been 

 laboratory demonstrated that permits a shore station to compute the 

 position of a remote buoy for each Navy Navigation Satellite System 

 satellite pass over the remote location. This system includes a 

 receiver-processor to record position data from each satellite pass 

 and a transceiver to telemeter these data to the shore station via a 

 communications satellite. The shore station computer is capable of 

 handling 30 remote stations as designed, but could handle up to 100 

 remote stations with software modifications and computer memory 

 capacity expansion. 



The possible measurement of ocean wave height and direction at 

 extreme distances using over-the-horizon radar backscatter 

 analysis techniques has been found to be quite promising in 

 scientific field experiments and, in conjunction with other 

 oceanographic and meteorological prediction systems, will have 

 many Navy uses. 



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