Probing Deeper, Higher, Farther

Abstract

With the use of satellites, rockets and deep earth drilling cores, and with high-speed computers to store and tally information, man is probing deeper in?1to the earth, higher the sky and farther over land than ever before. Unexplored s,ources of the earth's water and minerals are being discovered and monitored by constantly circling Tufty satellites. Huge of delicate seismic instruments are listening in to the earth's faint tremors deep its interior-releasing information on the earth's inner structure and enabling scientists to come closer to predicting an imminent earthquake or volcanic eruption. Deep-sea equipment withstanding higher pressures and corrosion are permitting oceanographers to live longer the sea, discover new mountain regions, probe life histories of sea creatures, and record more details of the oceans' temperatures, currents and pressures. Upon the frigid polar caps, research is being stepped up to measure the structure of snow and ice, clock the movements of glaciers, measure radiation and cosmic waves. By probing deeper into the earth's sediment, man is probing farther back time. From microscopic fossils and ooze from drilling cores, man is investigating ancient records of past ice ages and the evolution of plants, animals and man. On the earth's surface, new archaeological digs are unearthing ancient fragments of bones. mud huts and tools that give information on man's activities thousands of years ago. During the year: Project EROS was announced by the Department of Interior: a satellite to collect resource and environment data on such things as distribution of minerals and water supplies, and extent of water pollution, agricultural crops and forests. A new kind of helium whistler, a lightning-caused radio the audible range, was discovered from satellite observations far out the earth's atmosphere. Radar waves are bounced back to ultra-sensitive receivers a new method for probing the structure of invisible layers the earth's atmosphere. The earth's atmosphere shakes like a huge bowl of jelly once every four or five seconds after it has been struck by a nuclear explosion or a barrage of particles from the sun, geophysical research showed. The world is approaching a peak of a heat wave due to end about the year 2400 or 2500, after which the world will enter a period of bitter cold. Poisonous chemical hydrogen cyanide may have been the principal ingredient of earth's primitive atmosphere, not the methane-ammonia mixture suggested by scientists. The United States continues to delay development and application of knowledge about the oceans, at a time when Russia has surpassed Great Britain and Japan as an oceanographic power. For the first time, an oceanographic civilian schooner has been permanently equipped with satellite navigation equipment that accurately calculates the ship's position at all times. An 800-mile-long trench, up to 15 miles wide, has been discovered the ocean floor between the Hawaiian Islands and the Aleutians, the northernmost of a series of major fracture zones the Pacific Ocean. A fountain of fresh water gushed 30 feet above sea level from a hole drilled into the ocean floor off Florida. Construction began on Dr. Jacques Piccard's undersea vessel, PX15, designed to drift silently for several weeks with the 1,500-mile Gulf Stream while scientists observe the biological, chemical, and physical aspects of the ocean. Neon gas, mixed with oxygen. could provide a safe and useful atmosphere for divers beneath the sea. An undersea road covered with a pavement of manganese oxide was discovered extending to depths of 3,000 feet beneath the ocean off the coast of Florida, Georgia and South Carolina. Plans are underway for an undersea rescue vehicle designed to withstand deep ocean pressures, as part of the Navy's five-year, $200 million program called Deep Submergence Systems Project. The Indian Ocean contains the hottest, saltiest water the seas, as well as the fastest midsea current and the coldest surface water the tropics, according to scientists with the International Indian Ocean Expedition. Thousands of luminous fish and sea creatures following their life cycle relation to light, temperature and food are responsible for the rising and sinking layers the ocean, a mystery first noticed by sonic equipment during World War II. A plan for international study of ocean tides to learn more about the earth's electrical field was endorsed by the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission, under the auspices of UNESCO. Geophysical, oceanographic, hydrographic and meteorological data will be compiled and stored enormous amounts with the 510 computer installed aboard the modern nine million dollar vessel Oceanographer, now part of ESSA's Coast and Geodetic Survey fleet. Warnings about exhausting the resources of the sea were heard at the Second International Oceanographic Congress Moscow. The changes of species of plankton have been shown deep sea cores to coincide with reversals the earth's magnetic field. The radius of the earth was measured from satellite observations to the most accurate figure yet obtained3,963.203 miles. A new radio sounding device recorded depths of ice and rock beneath the Antarctic plateau along an 830-mile distance the second stage of a threeyear study. Volcanoes various parts of the world showed signs of activity: Mt. Taal the Philippines; Mt. Kelud Java; Mt. Redoubt Alaska, and a volcano Sudan that has been inactive for many centuries. A new method of using pulsating amplified light rays (lasers) beamed along the sides of active fractures the earth may help scientists predict earthquakes. A 10-year program of earthquake research to set up new arrays of equipment for measuring the strain and tilting around active earthquake-prone areas was recommended by a special panel on earthquake prediction. A series of earthquake shocks, starting on Aug. 19, killed nearly 3,000