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Achievements in Marine Geology and Geophysics
Pages 51-64

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From page 51...
... These major discoveries cannot be completely understood apart from the people, the institutions, the organizations, and the funding agencies that led to their advancement. In particular, the establishment of the National Science Foundation at the dawn of the modern era of ocean exploration and on the eve of the discovery of plate tectonics fueled the rapid rise of marine geology and geophysics to become one of the most fundamentally exciting and societally relevant disciplines in all of science.
From page 52...
... The current format of oceanography, which involves an interdisciplinary grouping of marine physicists, biologists, engineers, chemists, and geologists, was largely an invention of the Navy to meet its specific needs. Although at first glance it might seem odd that investigations undertaken for the purpose of antisubmarine warfare might lead to plate tectonics or paleoclimate reconstructions, many observations relevant to Navy interests turned out to be key ingredients for these future revolutions.
From page 53...
... Columbus Iselin of WHOI and Lieutenant Mary Sears encouraged Roger Revelle, then Director of Scripps, to become involved with the new ONR's Geophysical Branch. The National Science Foundation was founded soon after, in 1950.
From page 54...
... Underway data from Lamont's ships dominated the geophysical data banks. Lamont led the way in perfecting the use of geophysical surveying and sampling systems in the oceans, including the use of marine magnetometers, marine seismic reflection, precision depth recorders, piston cores, heat flow probes, and marine gravimeters (although others, including Sir Edward Bullard and Vening Meinesz, were the true pioneers)
From page 55...
... The pattern changed at the fracture zones and was repeated 80 km to the west as the ship passed south across the Murray fracture zone. It was not until a decade later that the symmetric anomaly patterns were found in the Indian Ocean, along the Reykjanes Ridge, and in the South Pacific that allowed geophysicists to correctly identify the cause of the Pioneer magnetic anomalies.
From page 56...
... NSF funding has allowed both the shipboard computers and the Geological Data Center to continue by allowing some of the costs for these facilities to be included in the day rates for data collection in NSFfunded ship time. And most importantly, NSF provided the funds for countless peer-reviewed grants to use data collected by shipboard computers and archived in the GDC for outstanding science.
From page 57...
... But plate tectonics was a concept that was poorly represented on the continents, and therefore there was little hope of getting the story straight before the post-World War II era of ocean exploration. The decade of the 1950s was marked by a total lack of consensus on Earth history.
From page 58...
... Shaded boxes are the magnetic reversal time scale. Reprinted from Heirtzler et al.
From page 59...
... Reconstruction of Earth's Paleoclimates The impact on society of the use of MG&G observations to reconstruct paleoclimates has been no less important and followed fast on the heels of the plate tectonic revolution. Whereas the time scales for plate tectonics are measured in millions of years, the deep sea record from sediment cores has taught us that Earth's climate vascillates on thousand-year time scales, and possibly much less.
From page 60...
... . lion that sedimentation rates were constant throughout the entire Bruhnes epoch, the oscillations in the stable isotopes became the paleoclimate equivalent of the magnetic reversals for plate tectonics.
From page 61...
... Despite these remaining questions, the deep sea has provided a well-calibrated record of Earth's natural climate changes that can be used to help assess the future impact of man's activities. The National Science Foundation was by far the greatest supporter of climate research, including the very successful CLIMAP project (Figure 5~.
From page 62...
... DSDP sampled the basal sediments in Leg 3 along a magnetic profile in the South Atlantic that established beyond a shadow of a doubt that the seafloor just beneath was indeed the age predicted by the Vine-Matthews hypothesis. The ocean drilling program developed the hydraulic piston corer that became the mainstay for sampling thick, continuous sequences in areas of high sedimentation rate in order to investigate climate change on orbital and suborbital time scales.
From page 63...
... But by the mid-1970s, the slots within the institutions were filled by a young cohort, and nonoceanographic institutions began hiring the MG&G students to teach plate tectonics to undergraduates and graduates. As these former students who found themselves at nonoceanographic institutions sought to develop their own research programs, they saw the lock that their former alma maters had on MG&G funds and ship time, and they cried, "Foul!
From page 64...
... Dick Von Herzen, co-chief scientist on the drill ship, recalls happily taking delivery of the data and whiskey, and reciprocating with some beef high seas barter in the far South Atlantic. These days, planning is so extensive, time-consuming, and exhaustive that it has led one jaded investigator on soft money to remark, "It is cheaper for NSF to pay us to plan than to pay us to do science." EPILOGUE When I was asked to review the history of marine geology and geophysics from the perspective of NSF sponsorship, I firmly believed that I would end up regretting the assignment.


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