264 • Marine Minerals: Exploring Our New Ocean Frontier 



acquiring these data increased, the concept of ob- 

 taining the data as a condition of permit was de- 

 veloped. Starting in 1967, the MMS has reim- 

 bursed industry permittees for reproduction costs 

 of acquired CDP seismic data. Recent costs for such 

 data have averaged about $600 per mile. The MMS 

 now holds about 1 million miles of such data, of 

 which about 260,000 miles was acquired before fis- 

 cal year 1976 and could continue to be held as pro- 

 prietary indefinitely. Data acquired after 1976 are 

 held as proprietary by the petroleum industry for 

 a period of time. MMS is about to propose a rule 

 increasing the hold on such geological data from 

 10 to 20 years. Additionally, the agency is consid- 

 ering prohibiting the release of any geophysical data 

 until the new rule goes into effect.*^ The effect of 

 this new policy would be to shut off most industry- 

 collected data from reaching the public for another 

 decade. Approximate amounts of CDP data re- 

 maining in MMS archives for the years 1977 

 through 1985 are shown in figure 7-2. 



Ninety-five percent of the CDP data are coUected 

 in digital form, with the remainder analog. Of the 



"T. Holcomb, NOAA/NGDC, Apr. 24, 1987, and D. Zinger, 

 MMS Reston, Apr. 27, 1987, personal communications to OTA. 



Figure 7-2.— MMS Seismic Data 



700 



600 - 



500 - 



m 400 

 o 



m 300 



200 - 



100 - 



a-_=_._:__^_ " 



1977 1978 1979 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 

 Year 



I — I Cumulative sum of 

 seismic data 



r— I Annual seismic 

 '-' data 



SOURCE: Office of Technology Assessment, 1987. 



portion stored by MMS, 95 percent are stored on 

 Mylar film with the remainder on magnetic tape. 

 Except as noted above, none of the data are avail- 

 able to the general public. Industry is the source 

 of all of the data and MMS expects future acquisi- 

 tion rates to continue at about the same rate as the 

 past few years. These data are acquired as a con- 

 dition of offshore geological and geophysical per- 

 mits issued under the terms of the OCSLA. There 

 are no problems obtaining the data, so long as 

 MMS has the funds to reimburse the permittee for 

 the duplication costs. MMS also collects physical 

 oceanographic data, which accounts for about 25 

 percent of the MMS Environmental Studies pro- 

 gram. These data are obtained by MMS contrac- 

 tors; MMS contracts now specify that data obtained 

 under contract are to be provided in digital form 

 to the NODC. 



U.S. Geological Survey 



The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) is the dom- 

 inant civilian FederaJ agency that collects marine 

 geological and geophysical data. 

 USGS conducts regional-scale 

 investigations aimed at under- 

 standing and describing the gen- 

 eral geologic framework of the 

 contintental margins and evadu- 

 ating energy and mineral re- 

 sources. About 60 percent of the EEZ data collected 

 are in digital form. The "raw" field data are usu- 

 ally stored for some lengthy period for possible di- 

 rect access. About two-thirds of the data must be 

 merged (aggregated) with other data (usually navi- 

 gation data) in order to be of value. The total 

 amount of EEZ data collected to date is stored on 

 about 50,000 reels of magnetic tape and is being 

 accumulated now at about 200 reels per year. The 

 time lag from collection to reporting is about three 

 years for publication in a scientific journal and 

 about one year for a seminar or an abstract at a 

 meeting. 



Future acquisition of EEZ data is expected to in- 

 crease approximately 10 percent per year, mainly 

 because new equipment allows more information 

 to be collected per ship mUe. In the past, all USGS 

 data were copied and sent to NGDC . This policy 

 continues except for digital seismic data; only sum- 

 maries of these data are sent. NGDC then an- 



