254 • Marine Minerals: Exploring Our New Ocean Frontier 



According to NGDC, "If funding agencies abdi- 

 cate their responsibility for the processing of data 

 to a stage usable by others and the long-term pres- 

 ervation of the data, they have in fact created a bur- 

 den for the scientific community and create the pos- 

 sibOity of non-productive and redundant collections 

 of data." ^° When secondary usage is not planned 



^'M. S. Loughridge, "Frontiers in Data Storage, Retrieval, and 

 Display," Proceedings of the Marine Geology and Geophysics Data 

 Workshop, Nov. 5-7, 1980 (Boulder, CO: National Geophysical and 

 Solar- Terrestrial Data Center, 1980), p. 145. 



for, it either takes large expenditures to "reconsti- 

 tute" the data, or the data never become available 

 to the secondary user.^' 



^'A simple library function can prevent data duplication. NGDC 

 has a data base called GEODAS (GEOphysical DAta System) which 

 identifies where data have been collected emd by whom. The new user 

 is then faced with copying and converting the data. 



SURVEY AND CHARTING EFFORTS 



NOAA's National Ocean Service (NOS) and the Table 7-1.— Funding for EEZ Programs 



USGS Office of Energy and Marine Geology are j 



the civilian organizations with primary responsi- (million dollars) 



bilities related to acquisition and processing of Agency T984 1985 1986 



bathymetric and geologic data within the U.S. Department of Commerce: 



EEZ. While source data should be archived in a National Oceanic and Atmospheric 



national database (NGDC), the evaluation of data Administration 1.0 4.4^ 5.0 



quality and processing of the data into maps and ^^P^'^'I!^"! of the Interior: 



^, ,. . , , . -, •,• . ■ . U.S. Geological Survey 4.7 5.1 8.4 



charts, digital or analog, is a responsibility which Minerals Management Service ... 2.7 1.8 1.6 



must continue as a part of the NOS and USGS mis- Bureau of Mines 0.3 0.2 1.2 



sions. Effectively, NOS and USGS produce the Total funding 8.7 11.5 16.2 



Federal assessment of the best geographic depic- ^A SeaBeam system was purchased for an additional $2 million. 



tion of these data. It is important that both agen- source: office of Technology Assessment, 1987 



cies acquire the capability to establish and main- 

 tain these data sets in digital form. Without such USGS' The GLORIA Proeram 

 efforts each individual user would have to judge 



data quality and process a myriad of data sets which The USGS GLORIA mapping program is in- 



would be a costly endeavor. tended to provide a complete and broad overview 



In 1984, USGS and NOAA signed a Memoran- °f ^he U.S EEZ (see ch^ 4). Currendy, about 30 



dum of Understanding- to conduct joint mapping PTAl\f^u T '""^Tt'q fw 

 and survey efforts in the EEZ. Funds appropriated GLORIA. At the present rate the entire U.S. EEZ 

 to USGS and NOAA have been increasingly re- ^^^^ be covered by the end of 1996 The t,me lag 

 J , , ,1 • 1 tu i„„* between surveying and publication ot map; is a!)out 

 programmed to support this research over the last _^ ,„TTr,^r.- , .■ u >^.,^r>TA 

 Q ^ . 1 T?x?7 1 .• f A • ^u T! A 11/2 years.30 USGS intends to distribute GLORIA 

 3 years. Total EEZ exploration funds in the red- , ^ , , ,. , , xt^t^/-. ■ 

 eral agencies were $9 million in 1984, $12 million ^ata to the public through NGDC; however, none 

 in 1985, and about $16 mUlion in 1986 (table 7-1). has yet been archived. All of the swath data are dig- 

 Eighty percent of the money for EEZ exploration '^^ and stored on magnetic tape. These data must 

 is within USGS and NOAA budgets; die GLORIA ^e combined with navigational information to be 

 and multi-beam survey programs consume virtu- °* *"^^ value, 

 ally all of this funding. 



"About one million square nautical miles. 



"To date, the EEZ off the west coast (California, Oregon, Wash- 

 ington), in the Gulf of Mexico, and off Puerto Rico/U.S. Virgin Is- 



leinds has been mapped. The West Coast Atlas was published in March 



^'Cooperative program for bathymetric survey by NOAA and 1985 on the second anniversary of the EEZ declaration. The Gu// of 



USGS, signed by both J. Byrne and D. Peck, April 1984. Mexico Atlas will be published in August 1987. 



