OCEANOGRAPHY 1961 — PHASE 3 197 



more than you might thmk, perhaps. And what information we have 

 on that we will be glad to share, too. 



When it comes to drilling the university people have their core 

 barrels. But when they wanted a little piece of hard rock in prepara- 

 tion for the Moho hole, they called in the oil industry. 



The subject of ship requirements, which is one of the big questions, 

 I understand, in this whole oceanography program, I do not feel 

 qualified to say a great deal about, except that we get along without 

 any gold-plated ships. 



There are certain activities that oceanographers wish to conduct, 

 involving bottom sampling at great depths, which will require a spe- 

 cial maneuverability capabilitj'' which ordinary ships do not have, 

 and I have no quarrel at all with the desire for special ships of this 

 nature. But for geophysical surveys, in which we have far more ex- 

 perience than universities, we get along very well with converted war 

 surplus vessels of one sort or another. We will hear more about that 

 later. 



The second major area in oceanography where work needs to be done 

 is the question of the large scale surveys, the data gathering on a large 

 scale, which Dr. Ravelle himself, in testimony before the Senate, said 

 is "not really research." I could not agree with him more. 



On the area of making surveys, that is our business. This is where 

 we can really make a contribution. I am speaking now for the geo- 

 physical industry. 



The contractors can get the data. They know how to do it accu- 

 rately and efficiently. With people like me breathing down their 

 necks, they damn well better get it accurately, efficiently, quickly. 



The oil and the mining industries are, I believe, in the best position, 

 through experience and incentives, to evaluate these large-scale sur- 

 veys in terms of possible natural resources. That is our business. 



The academic oceanographers have told us that there exist large 

 reserves of such minerals as manganese, cobalt, phosphates, and so on, 

 in the oceans. 



But the samples they have gathered for research purposes are far 

 too small and unrepresentatiA^e for any sort of an economic evalua- 

 tion that has any meaning whatsoever. It would ^e like counting 

 the number of bushels of corn stored in one bin in Kansas and extrap- 

 olating that to cover the whole country. 



You may well ask : If the oil and the mining industries are the best 

 qualified to do this sort of work, and if there are large economic 

 reserves, why have we not done anything about it? Why should the 

 Government sponsor surveys of this nature on the mineral resources 

 of the oceans ? 



The reason we have not done much about it is because, for the pres- 

 ent and the immediately foreseeable future, there is very little eco- 

 nomic incentive to do so. 



In the first place, we are in no position, so far as I know, although 

 I am no lawyer, to lay claim to any mineral resources in the deep 

 oceans. This is an area of international law, if you like, which has 

 not been explored very deeply. We do not feel we are in a position 

 to lay claims, and we are not going to risk a lot of money looking for 

 something if we do not know that we can claim it. 



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