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craft to f ly magnetometers. A set of aircraft tracks at five-mile spacing perpendicular to the ship's track would furnish rapid coverage. Flanking escort ships out near the limits of the flight paths would serve both for navigational monitoring of the aircraft tracks and for echo sounding. A single aircraft carrier of moderate size could complete the detailed mag- netic survey of the world ocean in the first two years of the Decade and thereby provide the base charts to guide subsequent studies. VII . DEEP OCEAN EXPLORATION While the resources of the various continental and island shelves are the most amenable to exploitation at present, and w i l l be for some time, they are also those with the greatest potential for international controversy. The coastal states are well aware of the possibilities of recoverable resources In those areas, and w i l l be alert in protecting their Interests. As a result of shelf exploration, there have been, and w i l l be more, bilateral and reg- ional compacts of various kinds. The resources of the deep ocean, however, present a different prob- lem. Because the economic potential of the deep ocean is largely unknown, and because this region Is now free of the problems of claims of national jurisdiction, it is of great Interest to a l l states and particularly to those that are not economically developed. But the economic payoff from deep ocean exploration is far from de- finable. Nevertheless, the deep ocean cannot be neglected merely because Its resources cannot be recovered immediately. A substantial part of an Inter- - 65 -
national program of ocean exploration should be devoted to a statistically sound description of the distribution of various properties of the deep ocean. This would involve a routine, systematic survey of constants and variables not biased toward the solution or explanation of any specific problems. It would not be directed toward any specific resources, but would measure the same general parameters discussed in continental shelf projects, but on a much grosser spatial basis. Once the general appear- ance of the structures and properties found is known, the more intensive research or resources exploratory work could be done with much less lost motion. The ships required for deep ocean work should have more range and endurance and hence w i l l be more expensive than those used in the shallow coastal areas. This suggests that a sharing of these facil i t ies and assoc- iated talent might be possible, and that a truly multilateral cooperative effort could be organized. The objectives would be the production of des- criptive products such as those described by the National Academy of Sciences Committee on Oceanography m its suggestions for oceanwide sur- veys, or those produced by the ESSA Coast and Geodetic Survey in its SEAMAP program. It is conceivable that prearranged deep-sea tracklines, with relatively wide spacing, could be run to and from various coastal project areas by the vessels involved. This would require coordination in the plan- ning phase, some standardization of methods and reporting,and the inter- national distribution of the resulting data. - 66 -
