SEA GRANT COLLEGES 209 



any installation, bite, make noise, stir the water; other creatures enter any 

 crevices, excavate and drill. 



At the same time other natural events take unfamiliar form in the sea. 

 Landslides become strong density flov^'s, earthquakes result in brief but powerful 

 increases in the hydrostatic pressure, and internal invisible waves confuse experi- 

 ments and ASW search. 



A great list of such interactions could be set down, all emphasizing the fact 

 that the ocean technologist must be very broadly trained and always cognizant 

 and alert to the range of possible compromises of classical engineering approaches. 

 Laboratory tests, for example, cannot duplicate the corrosion of a metal under an 

 unknown organism, or indicate what creature will immobilze a part intended to 

 move undersea. 



V. TECHNICAL LEARNING FROM NATURE'S SOLUTION TO OCEANIC PROBLEMS. 



It is a platitude to state that the organisms of the sea have solved many of the 

 important problems that face man in his utilization of the sea. Energy supply, 

 light production, echo location, communication, propulsion, navigation, thermal 

 control, oxygen deficiency, osmotic control, and control of the bends are a few 

 of the problems that marine creatures have solved. 



Studies of the manners by which these solutions have been achieved have im- 

 portant implications to ocean technology, for, in many of the understood 

 cases, these have been clean basic solutions. It has been stated with considerable 

 truth that man's development of high performance submersibles would have 

 earlier advanced had the fast-swimming fish been studied sooner. 



The solutions that creatures have evolved can be considered to be genetic solu- 

 tions. In most cases we are probably restricted to learning from the organisms. 

 In some cases, however, we may be able to employ the genetic information 

 directly. 



For example, there are some 50 or more species of higher plants (halophytes) 

 capable of living in waters even more saline than sea water. These plants possess 

 effective systems for the desalination of sea water, and hence also the genetic 

 information on how this is accomplished. 



Since these are flowering plants derived from many families this genetic infor- 

 mation should be transferable to our useful crop plants in selective hybridization 

 experiments. Successful breeding of this nature would introduce order of 

 magnitude increases in the salt tolerance of crop plants. Not only might this 

 allow the development of a sea water agriculture but, possibly and more im- 

 portantly, permit the conduct of an effective terrestrial agriculture in saline soils 

 and with saline waters. Such soils and water are one of the rapidly developing 

 problems of desert agriculture under perpetual irrigation. The larger woody 

 halophytes, such as the mangroves or the Siamese citrus may be useful as salt 

 excluding rootstocks for our useful fruit trees. 



Other direct utilizaiton of the genetic know-how of marine organisms are 

 probably not of such far-reaching consequences as the crossbreeding of salt 

 tolerant plants and crop plants. 



The direct use of marine creatures to populate inland saline lakes has been 

 spectacularly successful, however ; although such introductions have not been 

 widely attempted. 



VI. APPLICATION OF ENGINEERING AND TECHNICAL METHODOLOGY AND KNOWLEDGE 



TO OCEAN SCIENCE 



The other half of the interrelation between technology and ocean science has 

 received little attention. It is clear that hydrodynamic analysis, boundary layer 

 theory, dimensional analysis, high-pressure chemistry, investigations on electro- 

 lytes, etc., represent powerful methods and have acquired a fund of knowledge 

 applicable to many of the problems of ocean science. Some of the high-pres- 

 sure engineering work on phase transformation in minerals, and dimensional 

 analysis of organisms has yielded important results. However, much of the 

 potential yield of interaction between the two fields lies unharvested. The two 

 fields have largely neglected this important aspect of their interrelationships. It 

 can undoubtedly be stimulated only in the university milieu. 



VII. IDENTIFICATION OF HUMAN NEEDS FOR AND HUMAN CONSTRAINTS TO OCEAN USE 



A number of ocean technological programs appear to have suffered from an 

 inadequate appraisal of needs. These inadequate appraisals are of two de- 



