I. Summary 



The International Decade of Ocean Exploratiori was conceived in 

 the late 1960's as a means for acquiring the scientific and technical knowl- 

 edge needed for ocean resource utilization and marine environmental 

 protection on a global scale. The U.S. program for the IDOE, with which 

 this report is concerned, has concentrated its effort in four scientific areas: 

 environmental quality, which primarily involves chemical and biological 

 aspects of the marine environment and marine pollution; environmental 

 jorecasting, which is concerned with oceanic motions and with inter- 

 actions between the ocean and the atmosphere; seabed assessment, which 

 is concerned with the geology and geophysics of the sea floor and the 

 processes of plate tectonics and metallogenesis; and living resources, 

 which is concerned with marine ecosystems and the biological productivity 

 of the oceans. The program as a whole has concentrated on studies of 

 the open ocean, as opposed to coastal and estuarine waters, and on 

 problems having global significance as opposed to those of a purely local 

 character. 



IDOE projects have typically been long-term, multidisciplinary, multi- 

 institutional endeavors distinctly different in nature from most of the 

 research projects associated with funding agencies such as the National 

 Science Foundation and the Office of Naval Research. In its management 

 of the IDOE, NSF has drawn upon the strengths and capabilities of 

 existing institutions, rather than creating new organizations with their own 

 rigidities. It has encouraged scientists to think in terms of multi-institu- 

 tional cooperative efforts. It has fostered the growth of international co- 

 operation in oceanic research. It has stimulated marked improvements 

 in data standardization and data exchange, nationally and internationally. 

 And it has provided a vehicle for the initiation and carrying out of 

 research projects which has made possible a number of comprehensive 

 oceanic studies which would have been unlikely had IDOE not existed. 



All this has not been accomplished without difficulties. The manage- 

 ment philosophy which NSF has adopted, while effective, has been suffi- 

 ciently different from that to which most scientists are accustomed that a 



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