WHAT IS GEOSECS? 
As man becomes increasingly aware of the ocean as a source 
of food, a disposal area for nuclear and industrial waste products, a 
strategic realm for national security and a controlling factor in the 
earth's climatic regime, he also recognizes how very little he knows 
about the sea. Until recently, oceanography has been a science of ex- 
ploration, of mapping variables that are relatively easy to determine 
such as temperature and total salt concentration and of studying the 
pattern of wind-driven currents in the surface layers of the water. 
Yet, the ultimate use of the sea depends critically upon a detailed un- 
derstanding of other processes in the deep sea -- the interchange of 
material between deep and surface water, the variation of organic pro- 
ductivity throughout the oceans and the exchange of water and gases 
with the atmosphere. 
Meanwhile, rapid expansion of science and technology in 
recent decades has produced sophisticated and powerful tools for the 
study required. Shore-based laboratories have mass spectrometers, law 
level radioactivity counters, atomic reactors for neutron activation 
and gas and liquid chromatographs. All of these instruments have been 
used for the analysis of individual constituents of ocean water and 
some have been used successfully at sea. The development of well- 
trained geochemical oceanographers and of shipboard laboratories, how- 
ever, has lagged far behind analytical techniques. Consequently, the 
potential for these new methods of studying the sea has only begun to 
be realized. 
