17. GEOLOGY AND GEOPHYSICS 



Dr. J. Lamar Worzel 



Lamont Geological Observatory 

 Columbia University 

 Palisades, New York 



I would like to point out that, while these instruments I am 

 about to describe are not very sophisticated, they work. We have 

 a very limited space on research vessels for instrumentation, and 

 we run up to 30 programs on one cruise. So, it is not possible to 

 take all the space for any one instrument. Therefore, it is essen- 

 tial that the instruments be kept within reasonable sizes. 



We have at least partially solved the question of reliability 

 by having two of each instrument. This way we can usually keep 

 one working. Navigation is one of our most difficult tasks. We are 

 always on the last ships at sea to receive new navigational tools. 



Figure 17.1 shows a DEEP SEA TRAWL WINCH (rather funda- 

 mental to the studies of geology and geophysics, at least of the 

 more remote types near the bottom). This winch is not packaged 

 very well. It had to be built piece by piece. We could not get 

 money enough to build a whole winch at once. It started out as 

 Dr. Piggot's winch in 1928, and has rather remarkable capabilities: 

 It can pay out 3, 000 fathoms of cable in 30 minutes; it measures 

 the tension in the cable; and it is somewhat responsive to constant 

 tension, but not completely. We had one winch which was com- 

 pletely responsive to constant tension. Before we could find out 

 how to unhook the device, we lost three sets of instruments. Our 

 present winch will recover 3,000 fathoms of cable in 90 minutes 

 with a ton on the end of the line, and, of coiorse, the weight of the 

 wire as well. This particular one is capable of operating in 5, 000 

 fathoms of water, which covers any of the trenches in this part 

 of the world. Only those near Asia are deeper. 



The PISTON CORING DEVICE (fig. 17. 2) is of great use in 

 geology. With it, samples up to 70 feet long of the sediment on 

 the bottom of the ocean have been taken. We have now about 4, 000 

 such samples in our laboratory taken with the winch shown in 



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