204 OCEANOGRAPHY 1961 — PHASE 3 



Mr. Vanik. Is it your experience that this information is being re- 

 jected by the Government, or ignored ? 



Dr. Blake. So far as I know, we have not even been asked. 



Mr. Vanik. There have been no inquiries or requests for you to fur- 

 nish any of this data ? 



Dr. Blake. I cannot say that positively for the company as a 

 whole. Of my section of the company, there have been no such 

 inquiries. 



Mr. Vanik. And this probably applies not only to the particular 

 work you are doing, but to all fields of science ? 



Dr. Blake. I would not be surprised. 



Mr. Vanik. That there is no central collection agency. 



Now, does this not point up the need for such an assimilation of 

 information ? 



What about the National Science Institutes ? Is there no gather- 

 ing of this that we could follow or check up on ? 



Dr. Blake. Not that I am aware of, in this field, in a systematic 

 manner. There are sporadic attempts to gather information from 

 one agency or another. As I say, the Hydrographic Office has done 

 some work in this field. However, so far as I am aware, there has 

 not been a concerted, organized effort to gather the available informa- 

 tion in the industry files that will be of use. 



Mr. Vanik. If we were to take it on a figure basis, the total amount 

 of scientific data that we know about in this one area, what percentage 

 of it do you suppose is in private corporate research files, as distin- 

 guished from public research ? 



Dr. Blake. I imagine more than half. 



Mr. Vanik. More than half. And this tremendous resource is just 

 untapped. It is just unused, uncorrelated and, you might say, immo- 

 bilized. 



Dr. Blake. For example, the Western Geophysical Co. alone, in 

 the last 10 years, has run something like 600,000 miles of seismic pro- 

 files in the oceans. 



Mr. DiNGELL. If the gentleman will yield to me, is not a collection 

 or compilation of this industrial data in one place one of the functions: 

 that this data center, as provided in 4276, can accomplish ? 



Dr. Blake. So I understand, yes. 



Mr. Vanik. Will the gentleman yield ? 



Mr. Dingell. I am transgressing on the gentleman's time. 



Mr. Vanik. But as a matter of fact, is not this data processing 

 business being undertaken now ? 



Mr. Miller. It has been established. It was only established early 

 this year. And I am certain that Admiral Steffan, who is out here 

 and who is in charge of it, is quite conscious of all of these things. 

 He has to build a layout and an organization, and I think he is to be 

 complimented for the way in which he has tackled the job. So I have 

 a hunch that before they are through he will be after them. 



Dr. Blake. On the subject of the data processing center, one of its 

 functions will be to process the data as well as to assemble it; other- 

 wise, it will not be meaningful. And one of my colleagues on this 

 committee, Carl Savit, will give you an example of how we do data 

 processing in an integrated exploration system. You might be inter- 

 ested to hear what he has to say on the subject of systematic process- 

 ing of data. 



