Wi 1 1 iam J. Merrel 1 , Jr. 

 Department of Oceanoaraohv 

 Texas ASM University 

 College Station, Texas 



1 am interested in identifying physical parameters and features 

 in the ocean through color photography and other remote sensors. 

 My most recent work has been related to identifying oceanograph ic 

 features in Apollo photography and in multisensor data taken in 

 Mexico and Brazil with NASA aircraft. 



(The following is taken from a letter dated August 1^ , 1969 

 from W. J. Merrell to G. C. Ewing.) 



" Apollo VI (See Notes 1 and 2 on p. 17-3) 

 This was an unmanned flight, so we have the highest percentage 

 of photographs over the deep ocean. Although there also seemed to be 

 a high percentage of cloud cover, some frames definitely show evidence 

 of color boundaries. The Texas ASM team (Paris, Chmelik, Merrell, 

 and Arnold) mention one (frame 1^95) in a paper to be published in the 

 final Aoollo Vll report. (This was turned in to NASA over a year ago 

 and has not been released yet.) Frames 1^99-1501 and frames 1^95-97 

 definitely show some sort of color variation or boundary. The overlap 

 of the frames is verv nice in that it gives added assurance that the 

 feature is not due to some mishap in the development of the photograoh. 

 Dr. Stevenson's slides were probably taken from one of these sequences. 

 The location of these color features is at least 700 kilometers offshore, 



" Apollo VI I 



There are no photographs which show color boundaries because there 

 are no vertical ohotograohs in the deep ocean that ar^ not almost 

 completely cloud covered. 



17-1 



