Ch. 7— Federal Programs for Collecting and Managing Oceanographic Data • 255 



Photo credit: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration 



The NOAA ship Surveyor is equipped with the Sea Beam system for detailed bathymetric mapping of the EEZ. 



USGS considers the GLORIA program a "show- 

 case" success and is committed to its completion. 

 However, recent budget cuts will at least delay if 

 not permanentiy inhibit the project. The Office of 

 Energy and Marine Geology had a budget of $24 

 million for marine geology in 1986. This is the to- 

 tal EEZ expenditure within USGS, which includes 

 $18 million for salaries and overhead. The entire 

 operating expenses budget of this office is spent on 

 the GLORIA survey (see table 7-1). Only modest 

 funds are expended on other activities, e.g., analyz- 

 ing mineral contents of vibracores.'' All Geologi- 

 cal Framework studies were discontinued in 1982, 

 also because of budget constraints. USGS has a con- 

 tract through 1991 with the British Institute of 



^'USGS estimates that two people spend 20 percent of their time 

 analyzing mineral core samples. At this rate, the bacldog of 1 ,000 cores 

 will take 10 to 15 years to complete; plans to procure more cores from 

 areas identified as economically promising based on this initial screen- 

 ing have been discontinued due to lack of funds. 



Oceanographic Sciences (lOS) which operates the 

 GLORIA equipment. If USGS cannot meet the 

 terms of the contract, a significant financial pen- 

 alty will be imposed and USGS could lose the 

 GLORIA system. Although the United States is 

 developing similar technologies, no system with the 

 swath width of GLORIA will be available in the 

 foreseeable future if the current system is returned 

 to lOS. 



NOAA: The Bathymetric Mapping Program 



The National Ocean Service of NOAA is pro- 

 ducing very detailed bathymetric maps of the EEZ 

 using multi-beam or swath echo-sounders in con- 

 junction with precise navigational positioning (see 

 ch. 4). A bathymetric map can be constructed 

 within 6 months of coUecting multi-beam data, in 

 striking contrast to the years needed to produce 

 maps and charts manually. Individual field surveys 



