EPICONTINENTAL SEDIMENTATION 477 



As more information concerning the present sea floor became 

 available, it was more and more obvious that at the present stage of 

 development the most efficient procedure to gain an understand- 

 ing of the facies of rocks would be to catch up on the investiga- 

 tion of the sea floor before attempting to decipher knowledge 

 from the rocks themselves. At last this is happening, and almost 

 invariably work at sea brings to light unexpected conditions. Most 

 marine geologists have gone so far that they hardly look deeper 

 inland than a beach of coastal dune. They have joined other 

 oceanographers wholeheartedly in their mariner's life. The name 

 often used for this type of work is "submarine geology," which lays 

 stress on the underwater happenings, that is, on conditions be- 

 low the surface of the present seas. The more general term "marine 

 geology" can be considered as comprising also the application of 

 submarine findings to ancient rocks, \\hich is the main job of those 

 marine geologists who have remained closer to the study of land 

 geology. For both groups the keen interest in their results shown 

 by fellow geologists on land, to say nothing of the funds provided 

 by oil companies, form a major stimulus for these studies. Meta- 

 phorically, the nongeological oceanographer is a native of the 

 oceans, the submarine geologist is an immigrant who still has 

 many ties with his home country on land, and the marine geologist 

 is a kind of science attache on behalf of the stratigraphers. Ad- 

 mitted! v meteorologists are in a somewhat similar position, with 

 the difference, however, that very few of them specialize on land 

 phenomena in their realm in the way most geologists do. 



The fact that the geological oceanographer has ulterior motives 

 in studying the sea must color his outlook somewhat. It is not 

 enough for geologists to be able to tell where certain processes are 

 taking place in the present oceans. We must understand why and 

 also must know what are the limiting conditions if we are to be 

 able to distinguish the diagnostic value of features in ancient 

 rocks. It is obvious that the need for help from biological ocean- 

 ographers has the same background, namely the wish to estab- 

 lish the relations between environment and biocoenosis for the 

 instruction of the hard rock geologist. 



I hope we shall be forgi\'en for the urgency with which we de- 



