668 



F. SUMMARY 



During the past 30 years the Navy's ocean surveys have 

 systematically collected bathymetry, gravity, magnetics, and 

 salinity/temperature tleld data on a global basis, in particular, 

 encompassing almost ail of the Northern Hemisphere. 

 Altogether more than 100 ship-years of data acquisition have 

 been devoted to this effort. It is highly unUkely that such an 

 effort will ever be repeated. Equally, as with any historical data, 

 the National Ice Center' s ice morplioiogy charts from the 1 960s 

 and the ice keel drati acoustic data from 1970s can never be 

 obtained from any future measurement program. 



The major findings of this chapter concern, firet, an assessment 

 of the potenual for each of the databases to support scientific 



research should public release become possible. The second 

 dimension concerns a prioritization of these findings in terms of 

 the miportance of the research that could be supported. 



The major findings identified in this chapter are encapsulated in 

 Tables 8 and 9, which also include a prioritization. We have 

 arrived at this prioritization by considering a number of factors, 

 including the uniqueness of the data, the intrinsic merit of the 

 scientific problems to which the data can be applied, the 

 practical difficulties associated with the use of the data (e.g., the 

 need to convert voluminous uncalibrated analog records to 

 calibrated digital records), and the likelihood that if the data 

 were not made available, the civilian community would find 

 some means of replicating it in the foreseeable future. 



