50 FRONTIERS IN OCEANIC RESEARCH 



Mr. Miller. Are we doing, today, sufficient in this field ? 



I understand the Navy's interest in physical oceanography, but as 

 a scientist, do you feel that we have gone far enough in trying to reap 

 the peaceful benefits ? 



Do you feel that at this time we should be laying the foundation for 

 that, which is not inconsistent with the other thing, in order to have 

 knowledge of the biology of the sea and what it is going to offer in the 

 way of peaceful benefits ? 



Dr. Wakelin. Yes ; I do, Mr. Miller. There are two aspects of it 

 with which we are concerned on the Interagency Committee. The 

 Bureau of Commercial Fisheries, of course, is increasing its budget 

 for the study of the fisheries part of the oceanographic program. In 

 general I concur in the National Academy's report that much more 

 has got to be done in the field of marine biology to lay the founda- 

 tion, not only in the research vein, but also a study which will lead to 

 the development of methods by which we can harvest both the organic 

 and inorganic materials from the oceans. 



Mr. Miller. Of course, you are familiar with the organic materials 

 because they are the life from the sea, and men have been taking food 

 from the sea since the dawn of history, since the dawn of time, but we 

 have done little in the other fields, of the inorganic phase of taking the 

 wealth of the seas ; is that true ? 



Dr. Wakelin. Except for the production of things like magnesium. 



Mr. Miller. And the boron products ? 



Dr. Wakelin. And things of this kind ; yes. 



Mr. Miller. Other than that, there is a field here, the manganese, 

 that I think you touched upon. 



Dr. Wakelin. Yes ; those are most interesting. Nodules have been 

 found in the area southwest of Bermuda, of the size of a baseball, 

 appearing to be rich in the oxides of manganese, cobalt, and nickel. 

 Scientists from Woods Hole are now beginning to feel, as a result 

 of their work on the structure of the nodules, that the nodules may 

 have an organic rather than an inorganic origin. 



Now, these are things we don't understand; the production and 

 the concentration of materials like manganese, nickel and cobalt in 

 nodules, rich in these and other materials in this part of the periodic 

 table, are difficult to understand, in terms of mechanism. 



Mr. Miller. When I was out at Scripps they gave me a shark's 

 tooth that was taken out of one of these nodules. Whether it is the 

 usual thing, whether it had to have something to build itself around 

 or not, I don't know, because it was purely incidental: the} 7 were 

 showing them to me, and picked one out of the tray and gave it to 

 me. They had to break the manganese away from the tooth. 



Dr. Wakelin. Yes. 



Mr. Miller. Of course, I was anxious to get the tooth because there 

 is a popular song now about the sharks having white teeth. These 60 

 million years old were a little bit yellow to me. [Laughter.] 



You also mentioned the matter of the disposal of low-level atomic 

 waste. This is a matter that is of concern and I don't want to go from 

 one committee to another, but one which has given us a groat deal 

 of concern. 



Dr. Wakelin. Yes. 



Mr. Miller. I imagine the low-level waste material going into the 

 ocean now is inert by the time it gets there ? 



