ment of whale stocks and will provide for the protection of individual 

 stocks before they become endangered. 



At the June 1975 meeting, the IWC departed from what the United 

 States considers to be sound scientific practice by setting higher quotas 

 than was believed advisable for stocks not yet seriously depleted but 

 possessing populations just above the level where the stocks would be 

 fully protected. With this one significant exception, however, the United 

 States expectations at the time of the 1974 IWC meeting were substan- 

 tially met during the 1975 IWC meeting. 



International Ocean Programs 



The United States has participated actively during 1975 in a broad 

 range of international ocean science programs. The National Science 

 Foundation (NSF) sponsored a number of international research projects 

 under the aegis of the International Decade of Ocean Exploration 

 (IDOE). These projects were directed at the dual objectives of improving 

 our understanding of scientific problems of the ocean, and, at the same 

 time, laying a sound scientific basis for future worldwide management 

 of the various uses of the ocean. 



The first field studies under the joint U.S.-U.S.S.R. Midocean 

 Dynamics Experiment (POLYMODE) were conducted in 1975. An initial 

 intercalibration of instruments and intercomparison of techniques and 

 methods were completed by U.S. and Soviet scientists. The U.S. core 

 program under POLYMODE consists of a statistical study of eddy mo- 

 tion in different geographic areas and a local dynamics experiment. The 

 initial field studies under the statistical-geographic program were com- 

 pleted in 1975. Planning for a local dynamics experiment continued. 

 Four additional countries — Canada, the United Kingdom, France, and 

 the Federal Republic of Germany — will participate in the statistical- 

 geographic program. 



A major observational survey of the El Nino phenomenon was con- 

 ducted in early 1975, after U.S. scientists had predicted the onset of an El 

 Nino for that time period. Scientists from the United States, Peru, and 

 Ecuador have collected a broad spectrum of physical, chemical, and 

 biological data in the region. These data indicated that a weak El Nino 

 event developed steadily over the period from January to March, but 

 that the large temperature and circulation anomalies that had developed 

 over this period dissipated very rapidly thereafter. 



During 1975, U.S. geologists and geophysicists published a series of 

 scientific papers summarizing the results of continental margins studies 

 conducted earlier off the coasts of Brazil and Argentina. These results 

 suggest that during early Cretaceous Period, the Sao Paulo plateau and 

 the West African coast between Equatorial Guinea and Angola were 

 contiguous. 



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