most concerns sailors, because of currents, destructive waves, dangerous 

 shoals, or drifting ice. It impinges on the beaches, harbors, and estuaries 

 that are important for industry, recreation, and human habitat. It includes 

 the zone that supports the photosynthesis upon which the whole biological 

 resource of the sea depends. Not only is this the only part of the ocean 

 that directly touches the lives of most of mankind, but, conversely, it 

 is mostly at these superficial depths that man acts on the sea by activities 

 such as dredging and fishing, or by contamination with chemical pollutants. 



The overview is equally Important to the scientific understanding of 

 the marine environment and its multifarious interrelations with the land 

 and atmosphere, which exert a crucial, though somewhat less direct influence 

 on the human environment. Virtually all the energy that controls its inner 

 workings flows across this boundary, and all the water types that constitute 

 the ocean's anatomy have their genesis at the surface, In a realon of 

 exposure to sun and sky and wind. Like the sediments of the earth's crust, 

 the sea is composed of tilted strata that outcrop somewhere at the surface. 

 Consequently, a complete man of all these surface outcrops must contain 

 information about all deep-water masses of the sea. Heometr lea 1 ly , the 

 ocean has approximately the proportions of a sheet of letter paper, and, 

 like a sheet of paper, much of Its information content is written on its 

 face, exposed to view from afar. 



In spite of these obvious advantages, oceanographic exploration 

 from the air is in a very rudimentary stage of development. Compared 

 with forestry, agriculture, terrestrial geography, and meteorology, 

 technigues such as aerial ohotography and infrared radiometry have as yet 



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