194 OCEANOGRAPHY 1961 — PHASE 3 



Actually, the money spent on the geophysics itself is peanuts com- 

 pared to the money that is committed as a result of the geophysical ex- 

 penditures. That is to say, on the basis of the geophysical data, we 

 commit, for land, for drilling, and so on, sums which are iax larger 

 than the geophysical expenses themselves. It is damned important 

 to us to have geophysics done right. 



I have heard of a commitment as large as $83 million on the basis 

 of one seismic survey. It had better be right. Even in Government 

 terms, that is pretty coarse gold. 



Now when I say it had better be right, I mean it had better have 

 a chance of being right at least once in five times, or we go under. 

 That is the kind of odds we are playing with. If we coukl just in- 

 crease our reliability by 10 percent — 10 percent, mind you — it is worth 

 an awful lot to us to get an increase of that small amount. 



All right. So much for the incentive. Let us consider now what 

 are some of the broad areas of oceanographic investigation in which 

 we in particular might contribute. 



One broad area is research. Another is the technologj^, or basic 

 engineering, you might say. And the third is the surveys. 



The research function is properly a university function. But I am 

 convinced that the industry can contribute more than it is sometimes 

 given credit for. 



To illustrate this point, I would like to tell you a little about our 

 own organization, as being typical of a major oil company research 

 laboratory. 



The laboratory where I am located is at La Habra, Calif, It is the 

 oilfield research division. Our concerns are with exploration, which 

 means geophysics and geology, drilling, and the production of oil. 

 None of the refining research, chemicals research, and so on, is at this 

 laboratory. 



At this laboratory, our professional staff for both research and de- 

 velopment, including the engineers, is 54 percent Ph. D.'s. I think 

 even a university operated laboratory could be proud of that per- 

 centage ; 18 percent master's, 28 percent bachelor's. 



In certain branches of the more "researchy" ends of the work, as 

 opposed to the engineering, for example, in my own section, the pro- 

 fessional staff is 100 percent Ph. D.'s. That is a little miusual in in- 

 dustry, but it is true, nevertheless. 



Outside of the general field of geophysics as such, where we feel 

 that we do have a strong capability, as I have already mentioned, in 

 the field of seismology, electrical methods, and so on, outside of strictly 

 the field of geophysics, there are other areas in which a typical oil 

 industry laboratory could contribute to oceanography. I am now 

 wearing my laboratory hat, instead of my SEG hat. 



Examples would include problems in sedimentation, the processes 

 of mineral concentration on the ocean bottoms, problems in geochem- 

 istry. We have a number of competent people in this field. Physical 

 chemists, organic chemists, crystal structure people, and so on. We 

 have some very competent people in the field of the physical properties 

 of rocks, porosity, permeability, density, mineralogy. We even have 

 a microbiologist in our laboratory, who has been concerned with the 

 effects of bacteria in earth sediments. 



