119 



tremendous concentration of manganese and otlier elements, too, on 

 the sea floor. I jnust say it is very easy to get cauglit up in our own 

 arithmetic and arrive at very impressive and sometimes rather mis- 

 leading values. At the present time, even if you could gather these 

 nodules up very cheaply, I doubt if you could give them away to any- 

 one in the mineral processing industry. The values are there but the 

 cost of extracting them is greater than the values at the present time. 



I think that these manganese nodules will be one of the real re- 

 sources of the future, but at the present time they are just something 

 that is potential. They are not now economic. 



The question has been raised many times as to the possibilities of 

 oil and gas in the deep ocean. We can't answ^er this question at the 

 present time. It wdll require a great deal more bottom exploration and 

 drilling before we can even get a hint as to w^hat the real potential is. 1 

 suspect that there are real possibilities, and I think one would be very 

 foolish to discount them. 



Some of the areas are of very considerable interest: the so-called 

 continental rise — particularly in the central and northern part of the 

 Atlantic where the deep oceanic basins below^ depths of, say, 13,000 

 feet, gradually slope up to the base of the continental slope, at 5,000 

 or 6,000 feet. This is an area of very thick sediments which contain a 

 great deal of organic material and it is entirely possible that a potential 

 exists here for oil and gas. 



Just this quick once-over, and in summary I would say that Me 

 know quite a bit about the mineral potential of th.c continental margins 

 of the United States, which amount to one- third the area of the Con- 

 tinental United States. We know quite a bit about this continental 

 shelf and slope and we can make a fair guess to the mineral potential. 



We know virtually nothing about the mineral potentials of the 

 deep ocean basins, which cover an area about twice as large as all the 

 continents put together. 



Mr. Fascell. Thank you very much. Dr. James. 



We will now hear from Mr. Bascom so that we can have all the testi- 

 mony before us before we begin questioning.. 



I would like at the outset, if I may, to include an article, "Mining 

 the Ocean Depths,'' by Mr. Willard Bascom, which appeared in 

 Geoscience News. 



(The article follows:) 



Mining the Ocean Depths 

 (By Dr. Willard Bascom) 



The idea of prospecting for minerals beneath the sea is not new. For many 

 years dredges have mined for tin in the protected waters of Thailand and In- 

 donesia. Pumps have brought up sands and gravels for building materials from 

 marine deposits off England. Gold miners in Alaska and coal miners in Japan 

 have followed underground veins and seams well out under the sea. 



Huge industries are concerned with the offshore production of oil, gas, and 

 sulphur from great depths in the rocks below the sea. Still others deal with the 

 extraction of minerals from sea water by chemical processes. But undersea 

 prospecting for minerals on the sea floor in the form described herein — beneath 

 rough salt water in exposed ocean areas — is a recent development, less than a 

 decade old. 



This new form of industrial science has its own special requirements for 

 geophysical equipment and sampling tools. Because each climatic area, each 



