By DON WALSH

The FY 1999 National Ocean Budget: A Positive Trend

Most federal agencies with ocean-related responsibilities received a slight increase in funding (above inflation) over fiscal year 1998. While it is somewhat difficult to filter out what is "ocean-related" in some agency budget lines, the following generalized breakdown does show a positive trend.

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)

NOAA received $2.1 billion for FY 1998; its FY 1999 appropriation is $100 million higher, an increase of about 5 percent--but about 0.5 percent less ($12.4 million) than the White House had asked for. Since this is higher than the government's estimated rate of inflation there is a small net increase in real spending. The administration and Congress were fairly close on their separate NOAA budget plans.

National Science Foundation (NSF)

NSF received $3.4 billion in FY 1998. For the new fiscal year it has been funded at the $3.7 billion level--slightly more than a 7 percent increase. The budget increase is almost 8.8 percent for NSF's geosciences program elements, which fund most of the NSF's marine science activities. The White House budget request was only 2.75 percent higher than the total that Congress appropriated. Despite the ideological differences that exist between the Republican Congress and the Democratic administration, both sides seemed to agree on the need to increase the national investment in science and technology. The NSF budget increase from FY 1996 to FY 1997 was only 1.56 percent, less than inflation. However, it was 4.87 percent for FY 1997­1998 and with the 7 percent increase for the current fiscal year the trend is encouraging.

Department of Defense (DOD)

Overall, DOD received a meager 1.14-percent increase over FY 1998, less than the rate of inflation. Within the program elements related to ocean science and technology, the Navy Research, Development, Test, and Evaluation (RDT&E) funding was increased by $521 million, or 6.42 percent, for an FY 1999 total of $8.6 billion. Within the overall RDT&E program, basic research was increased 3.9 percent and applied research by 14.5 percent. Those accounts cover much more than ocean science and technology, but the increases clearly demonstrate that the Navy is doing well in its research programs.

Department of Interior (DOI)

Within Interior, ocean programs are funded under the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and the Minerals Management Service (MMS), which manage offshore oil and gas production. USGS received a 5.1 percent increase in FY 1999 to $797.9 million. MMS received a 13.6 percent decrease from its FY 1998 total, and has $124 million available for the current fiscal year.

Department of Energy (DOE)

The ocean elements in DOE are included mostly in the "Biological and Environmental Research" account, funded in FY 1999 at $443.6 million, an increase of 9 percent above FY 1998. Overall, DOE saw its budget increase by only 3.3 percent to $16.4 billion in FY 1999. Because of inflation, that is close to "zero growth."

Environmental Protection Agency

EPA's total budget increases by 2.7 percent in FY 1999--to $7.6 billion. EPA thus is another zero-growth agency, because the increase is less than inflation.

NASA

About 10 percent of NASA's massive FY 1999 $13.7 billion budget is allocated to "Earth Science Enterprise" ($1.4 billion). This budget line decreased slightly (by 0.25 percent) from FY 1998. There also are some ocean-related activities in the agency's "Science, Aeronautics, and Technology" program element, which is funded at $5.7 billion in FY 1999, also a slight decrease (0.5 percent) from FY 1998.

Law of the Sea Repercussions?

During the Reagan Administration the United States officially informed the U.N.'s Third Law of the Sea (LOS) Conference that the United States would not be signing the LOS Treaty. The principal U.S. objection related to the deep-ocean mining provisions of the treaty draft. Virtually all of the treaty's other provisions were acceptable. However, the rules of the Conference postulated that a signatory nation had to accept all of the treaty or none of it.

Most of the signings by conference participants took place in the early 1980s. A decade later, two-thirds of the governments participating had ratified the treaty, which then came into force as international law. Now a single and fairly uniform legal framework could govern uses of the World Ocean.

Over the decade-long period of ratifications by most of the world's governments the ocean-mining provisions were reworked to the point where most U.S. objections were remedied. It is now the position of all of the U.S. federal agencies directly concerned (e.g., Defense, State, Interior, Commerce, etc.) that the treaty is now acceptable to the United States. The Clinton Administration urged the Senate to "advise and consent" to the treaty so the United States will be able to take the steps necessary for implementation.

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee did not hold hearings on the treaty, however. Without Senate approval, the United States will be the only major maritime power in the world that has not joined the treaty. Being an "outsider" could make it exceedingly difficult for the United States to exercise any influence over international ocean-related events that have Law of the Sea implications.

The Oceans Act

At the beginning of 1998 it appeared that the so-called "Oceans Act" would pass early in the year. Basically, the Act would create an "Ocean Policy Commission" of nongovernment members and a "National Ocean Council" made up of senior people from government departments with significant ocean responsibilities. The combined thinking of these groups would be used to develop a national ocean plan and implementing strategies. The Commission would have a finite life, while the Council would continue to implement and coordinate the plan.

The White House had urged such action. The Senate (in November 1997) and the House (in September 1998) had passed their own versions of the Act, and it seemed that there was a solid consensus. However, the two bills never went to a House/Senate conference committee to resolve the differences between them. In the waning days of the 105th Congress some heavy lobbying--from the offshore oil and gas industry, apparently--against the Act resulted in no further action being taken by the House (the second year in a row this had happened). Supporters of the Act hope that it will be reintroduced in the next Congress, and this time passed.

The National Ocean Conference

Among the participants in the conference (11-12 June in Monterey, Calif.) were some 500 representatives from government (federal, state, and local), the ocean industries, academe, and the environmental community. That mix ensured the broadest possible base of "ocean community" participation. The "all-star" cast from government included the president, the vice president, and several cabinet secretaries.

A heavy and diverse program of workshops and panel discussions culminated with a speech by President Clinton. In it he offered nine "new" national oceanic goals:

(1) Protect America's coasts from offshore drilling;

(2) Build sustainable fisheries;

(3) Rebuild and upgrade U.S. ports to meet the needs of the 21st century;

(4) Join the Law of the Sea convention;

(5) Protect the nation's coral reefs;

(6) Explore the sea--the last U.S. frontier;

(7) Protect the nation's beaches and coastal waters;

(8) Monitor climate and global warming; and

(9) Increase public access to naval/military oceanographic data and technologies.

Although the NOC was more of a town meeting than conference, it was nevertheless worthwhile--for several reasons:

(a) Despite political differences between the two branches of government, the NOC was initiated as the result of a congressional initiative, but then implemented by the White House.

(b) It was the first time that any White House had convened a national ocean meeting--with participation by the president, the vice president, and virtually every cabinet-level official having ocean-related responsibilities.

(c) Statements made by highest-level administration officials committed the Clinton administration to a very proactive path (both in policy and in funding) for the national ocean program.

President Clinton stated that his nine-point initiative would cost an estimated $224 million. However, not all of this is new money; many of the programs the president announced are repackagings of existing activities. In most cases the investment is spread over a period of three years. At the NOC it was stated that the cost of the national ocean programs would be about $1 billion a year. Taking inflation into account, the net increase in the national ocean program is therefore about 4 percent over the next three years. This is not a major "bump," but it is a step in the right direction.

The president also said that he was directing his cabinet officers to develop an outline for a real "national ocean policy." (This was not one of his nine initiatives, but was added to the end of his speech.)

At the end of 1998, unfortunately, no significant implementing actions had been taken on the promises made at Monterey in June. NOC supporters hope for better results in 1999.

The Year of the Oceans

In December 1994 the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution designating 1998 as an "International Year of the Ocean" (YOTO). The resolution urged member states to sponsor national and international cooperative programs and projects in support of the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC), an agency of UNESCO that coordinated the U.N. YOTO effort.

There was a vast menu of hundreds of activities (including the U.S. National Ocean Conference) in many nations rolled under the YOTO "tent." These ranged from serious scientific meetings on various global oceanic themes to "theme cruises" on board oceanographic and cruise ships. Whether or not most of these various activities would have taken place anyway is the unanswered question.

Even if YOTO failed to meet most expectations, it was worth "celebrating." The simple recognition by the full membership of the United Nations of the importance of the oceans is a major accomplishment in itself. In the past the United Nations has not been greatly concerned with the world ocean, except through the ad hoc activities of some of its agencies. The YOTO observances gave the United Nations the opportunity to take an international leadership role in this area. It also focused the entire organization's attention on the importance of the World Ocean to all of its member states.

The Kyoto Protocol On Global Warming

There were record-breaking summer temperatures in 1998 over large areas of the Earth's surface. For six months in a row new records were set. And the 1990s have been the hottest decade in recorded history. The ultimate consequences of global warming are: (a) higher average water temperatures in the oceans (which can have an adverse effect on sealife); (b) less production of oxygen from the sea through its phytoplankton (microscopic plants); and (c) the melting of land-bound glaciers and ice masses in Greenland and Antarctica--resulting in a rise in sea levels.

Precise measurements of sea levels carried out in the past few years have shown that the levels are in fact rising. There is some diversity in the theories about how and why levels are rising, and about what if anything should be done. Serious sea-level problems may still be many years away, but with so much of the world's population living near the sea the potential consequences of a prolonged global warming would be formidable.

The intent of the United Nations "climate meeting"--convened in Kyoto, Japan, in December 1997--was to develop a treaty framework for both developed and developing nations to cut atmospheric emissions. The outcome was the "Kyoto Protocol," a treaty draft which set as its basic goal the reduction of global greenhouse gas emissions to 5.2 percent below 1990 levels. The target-date range for achieving that goal was 2008­2012. The intent was clear, but the implementation has caused a number of problems.

All nations generally agree that there is a global warming problem and that much of the warming results from human activities. But the reduction of emissions will be costly to achieve and enforce. So the United Nations wants to put some type of measurable "tax" on the economies of the nations required to undertake the reductions. If this tax is imposed only on the developed nations, the developing countries will have a significant competitive advantage.

There is considerably less agreement on how the proposed quotas for reducing greenhouse emissions should be allocated between developed and developing nations. Developed nations recognize in general that they generate the most emissions and thus should be responsible for the largest reductions. They also are concerned, however, that the costs resulting from too-drastic actions could damage their economies and make them less competitive.

The developing nations want to be exempted from mandatory reduction quotas. They argue that the developed nations became successful by polluting the global environment--supposedly part of the price of progress. The developing countries say they also want to implement their own emission controls, but only when and if their economic development can permit them to do so--on a voluntary basis, in other words. India and China are among the developing countries most opposed to any imposition of fixed quotas.

There will be several additional working sessions scheduled to attempt to resolve the formidable questions that have been raised. Kyoto supporters hope that full agreement can be reached by 2001, when a treaty can come into force as international law.

At a two-week session convened in Buenos Aires in November 1998, representatives from 180 nations worked on resolving the differing views of the developed and developing nations. Plans are being developed for the next working meeting--expected to be held in either Morocco or Jordan sometime in 1999.

Administration Signs Protocol

The Clinton Administration signed the Kyoto Protocol on the 12th of November, one day before the end of the Buenos Aires meeting, bringing to 57 the number of nations that have signed; the United States was the last of the major industrial nations to sign.

The administration's action does not mean that all major problems with the Protocol have been resolved or that the U.S. Senate will ratify the treaty any time soon. It merely signifies an intent to work within the established framework, solve whatever issues remain, and try to meet the 2001 treaty-signing deadline.

The Clinton administration has assured Congress that it will not submit the treaty draft to the Senate until the question of emissions quotas on developing nations has been resolved. The administration's action in signing the protocol was intended to keep the United States in the discussions, and preserve the U.S. status as an active partner in the forthcoming implementation negotiations with other signatory nations.

Industry Concerns, And Senate Doubts

An increasing number of large U.S. corporations have become convinced that something (usually unspecified) needs to be done about global warming. Only a few years ago the leaders of many of those same corporations seemed to believe that the "global-warming issue" existed mostly in the imagination of a few misguided scientists and well-meaning environmentalists. The evidence is now too compelling, however, to ignore the basic facts concerning what could be a major world crisis.

Many members of the Republican-dominated Senate were not happy that the administration had signed the Protocol. Several have stated that any "advise and consent" consideration of the Kyoto Protocol as a treaty would depend on inclusion of a provision that requires developing nations to meet emissions quotas. If not, then the Senate probably will not give its approval to the treaty. In that case, the United States, the world's principal emitter of greenhouse gases (an estimated 36 percent of the global total), will remain outside the working framework developed to control atmospheric pollutants.

Hot Air and the Cold Ocean

Many if not quite all scientists agree that global warming caused by the so-called "greenhouse effect" has gradually increased the average temperature of the oceans. This generates two results that affect sea level. The first is that warm water expands--that is, increases its volume. This effect can most easily be measured in oceans where there is a seasonal heating and cooling of the surface waters. In summer the sea level rises, in winter it falls. These seasonal fluctuations would not occur if there were only a gradual, but continuing, fixed increase in average sea-surface temperatures.

The second effect is the melting of land-bound icefields. These are the giant ice caps covering the Antarctic and Greenland as well as other glacial fields around the planet. Enormous amounts of water would be released into the sea, with one result a significant rise in sea levels. It has been estimated, in fact, that if all of this ice melted completely the global sea level would rise about 300 feet--drowning hundreds of the world's major coastal cities.

A warmer ocean also would lead to more intensive "meso-scale" marine weather systems such as hurricanes, typhoons, and cyclones. Computer models show that a sea-surface temperature increase of about 4 degrees Fahrenheit would increase wind speeds by 5 to 12 percent, and NOAA scientists have estimated that a 10 percent increase in wind velocities could double the damage caused by these storms. This also means that the storm surge created by wind-pushed water from the sea would flood out even greater areas of low-lying coastal regions. The effects, combined with a rise in sea levels, could be devastating in the coastal areas where most of the world's population lives.

El Niņo Followed by "La Niņa"

The 1997­1998 El Niņo event was the largest ever recorded. Although the effects were mainly adverse, there was one beneficial fallout effect--a reduction in the formation of Atlantic hurricanes. By mid-1998 El Niņo had virtually dissipated, leaving scientists to ponder over their predictions, and those affected by El Niņo to assess the damage. An interesting side effect was that the media were left without a "goat" to blame for every unexplained global event. It was clear that the predictions about the timing and extent of the latest El Niņo were more accurate than was ever before possible. Much research is left to be done, however--but numerous programs are in place to carry out the research.

An El Niņo often is followed by a La Niņa event, which has reverse climatological effects. The new La Niņa started in the second half of 1998 and will continue through the winter of 1998­1999. While El Niņo was characterized by much higher than average sea-surface temperatures across the equatorial Pacific from Asia to South America, an excessive cooling of these same waters marks La Niņa--and has resulted in variable changes in the direction of the jet stream as it crosses the Pacific. Under normal conditions the jet stream path is relatively fixed. But the La Niņa effects mean that the West Coast of North America can expect widely varying weather patterns as the wobbling jet stream moves across the coast at different points.

The latest La Niņa was somewhat late in starting, and experts admit that predictions for a La Niņa event are much more difficult than for an El Niņo. On average, however, the event provides a much wetter winter for the Northwest United States and perhaps some drought in the Southwest. Overall, however, the 1999 U.S. winter should be milder, especially in the Southeast.

Is the Arctic Warming?

The mass and extent of Arctic Ocean sea ice has been decreasing, according to satellite mapping studies. A layer of permanent floating sea ice up to 12 feet thick covers the central part of the Arctic Ocean. Around the edges of this mass there is a large region of seasonal ice--i.e., increasing in size in the winter, and melting away to some extent in the summer. The white reflective surface of the ice, and its thickness, act as insulators to keep the ocean's surface waters cold. If there is less ice, however, more solar energy will be absorbed by the ocean, and it will warm. This action/reaction chain of events undoubtedly would affect the global climate. So the melting trend may be one of the better indicators of global warming. However, the satellite sampling covered just two decades (1979­1998), a rather short period of time, in geological terms, to observe and accurately assess natural cycles. As some scientists point out, the Arctic warming may be just part of a much longer natural cycle.

The Antarctic As Well?

Scientists reported in mid-1998 that the West Antarctica ice sheet showed evidence of having melted sometime within the last 750,000 years. Although most of the Antarctic ice cap is at least six million years old, it appears that the Western area is less permanent. If this ice sheet melts again the result would be a rise of about 20 feet in global sea levels. The impact on Florida serves as an example of the potential effect on the United States: About half of the state would disappear under the sea.

Other studies have shown that the average temperature in the Antarctic has risen by about 3 degrees Fahrenheit over the past century. There is visual evidence of this warming on the Antarctic Peninsula, where some of the great ice shelves attached to the land are disintegrating. Some scientists suggest this may be an early warning of overall global warming.

Luxembourg-Sized Ice

In October it was reported that a giant iceberg had been detected in the Southern Ocean, which surrounds the continent of Antarctica. The iceberg, 100 miles long and 20 miles wide, is the largest seen in the past 10 years. The Southern Ocean circulates around the continent, however, so it is highly unlikely that the berg (being tracked by satellites) will have any effect on the sparse shipping routes in that part of the world ocean.

Giant bergs are nothing new. In 1995 a chunk of ice the size of Luxembourg (48 miles long by 23 miles wide) was sighted off the Antarctic Peninsula. In 1986 there were three such icebergs launched into the Southern Ocean. All of them were bigger than the 1995 giant. These ice islands, rarely sighted by man, are now usually detected and tracked by satellites.

Only 3 percent of the water on Earth is fresh water--and most of it is trapped in the landbound ice in the Antarctic. Other landbound ice (e.g., in Greenland and on the numerous glaciers throughout the world) holds another large share. The remaining 1 percent or so is what the world's population uses. The massive amounts of fresh water trapped in these iceberg islands would represent a massive natural resource if they somehow could be moved to the water-deficit regions of the world--Australia, for example, and/or the Arabian Peninsula and Northeast Africa. Many governments, scientists, and engineers have studied the problem--and opportunity--from time to time, but no practical ways to safely and cost-effectively transport the ice have been found.

The Cores of Ancient History

It is well known that tree rings and the sections of geologists' cores can tell the story of ages past. Relatively few people realize, however, that ice cores drilled into landbound ice masses can serve the same purpose. To cite one example: The Antarctic is the most arid continent in the world--the South Pole receives less precipitation, in fact, than does Phoenix, Ariz. This means that the layering of the ice mass took place over hundreds of thousands of years. The relatively shallow top crust shows when the industrial revolution began. Distant volcanic events can be recognized from the traces of ash in the ice. And the beginning of the "atomic age" is found at the point where elevated levels of radioactivity are found. The ice core thus serves, in effect, as a valuable "log" of the Earth's climatic changes over long periods of time.

Scientists recently have found, from cores taken in both the Antarctic and Greenland, that, in general, both ends of the planet respond similarly to global climatic changes. The cores show, for example, that during the past one million years both northern and southern hemispheres have gone through long ice-age "events" at approximately 100,000-year intervals. There is evidence, however, that north and south may have been somewhat out of step during the last ice age. Variations in ocean currents are suspected, and work on that theory is continuing. The ice-coring program will continue, and will undoubtedly help mankind, through more accurate knowledge of the past, understand future climatic events.

The Sounds Of Global Warming

The velocity of sound in any medium is determined primarily by the density of the medium. In seawater, salinity ("saltiness") and temperature are the two primary factors determining density. Over a path length of several thousand miles salinity usually can be disregarded, and temperature becomes the sole significant influence on sound velocity. Using this principle, scientists recognize, it should be possible to measure ocean warming (or cooling) by sending sound pulses across long distances for a prolonged period of time. Sound moves faster in warm water. If the ocean is warming, then the time it takes for sound to travel from a specific transmitter to a specific receiver will decrease over a period of time .

All of which is the basis for the U.S. "Acoustic Thermometry of Ocean Climate" (ATOC) experiment, which started in 1991. Initially there was some concern that the very-low-frequency sound pulses would harm or at least disturb marine mammals. After extensive tests and routine operation of the system, however, there has been no evidence of any harmful impact on animals. The ATOC sound source is located off central California on Pioneer Seamount, and the receivers are in Hawaii, New Zealand, and Christmas Island (in the central tropical Pacific). On the longest acoustic path (about 3,000 miles) it takes a sound pulse about one hour to make the trip.

A 15-month operational period has shown that the theory works in practice. Ocean warming trends can be detected within a few hundredths of a degree Fahrenheit. Even with measurements of that precision, however, it would take about 10 years of transmissions to definitively map any trends of global warming. The present experiment, which ended in 1998, is being followed by tests with a second array system that started operation in Hawaii in mid-1998 and will transmit until the end of 1999. The success of these experimental systems may well lead to the establishment of a permanent operational array to help answer the question, "Are the oceans warming?"

From the Seafloor to Jupiter

The unmanned submersible AUTOSUB 1 undertook its first mission outside Britain in December 1997. The autonomous untethered vehicle (AUV) is operated by Britain's Deacon Laboratory of the Southampton Oceanography Centre. The first mission, in the Atlantic off Florida, was designed to test the vehicle's autonomy, reliability, and navigational accuracy. During one 19-hour autonomous dive it achieved a range of 66 miles and dove to a maximum depth of 650 feet. The project was supported and coordinated by the Deacon Laboratory, Florida Atlantic University, the University of South Florida, and the U.S. Navy's Office of Naval Research.

In June 1998 a second U.K.-U.S. mission was carried out in Bermuda with personnel from the Bermuda Biological Station participating. In addition, scientists from the University of California at Santa Barbara joined with those from the two Florida universities who had worked on the 1997 Atlantic mission. The project's objective was to take physical oceanographic and bio-optical measurements in the vicinity of the Bermuda Testbed Mooring. This time, the dives reached 1,500 feet.

To the Jovian Moons

Deep Ocean Engineering (DOE) of San Leandro, Calif., builder of the Phantom and Phoenix submersibles, has received a study contract from NASA to design a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) to support the agency's planetary missions. The first submersible, a tethered ROV, will be tested at Lake Vostok in the Antarctic.

NASA hopes to eventually launch an autonomous untethered vehicle (AUV) on board a spacecraft to land on one of Jupiter's moons, Europa, which is believed to have an "ocean" under its frozen surface. Jupiter's second moon, Calisto, also may have an ocean of this type--which could be 5 to 10 miles deep; the deepest ocean on Earth is only seven miles deep. A "space submersible" will be needed to explore Jupiter's oceans.

Exploring America's Marine Sanctuaries

In April 1998, Dr. Sylvia A. Earle, National Geographic Society's "Explorer in Residence," received a five-year $6 million grant to conduct submerged studies of the 12 national marine sanctuaries. These vast marine areas are the nautical equivalent of national parks.

The program combines public and private sources of funding; the Goldman Foundation of San Francisco is providing $5 million, National Geographic $775,000, and the U.S. government (NOAA) $2.5 million--in in-kind support (e.g., ship time, loans of personnel, equipment, etc.). It is expected that oceanographic institutions near the sanctuaries being studied also will contribute time and services.

The principal tool for the studies will be two "Deep Worker" one-person submersibles capable of diving to 2,000 feet. They will be built by Nuytco Research, a company in Vancouver, Canada. Pilot training for the scientist pilots began in Monterey, Calif., in October 1998, using two earlier-model Deep Workers. The Monterey Marine Sanctuary, one of the nation's largest, will be the first operating site.

Oceans--The Next Playground of Choice

Although a broad sandy beach is considered by many to symbolize nature at its best, the real truth is that most of the world's best beaches need to be maintained by "nourishment"--i.e., the dumping of sand at regular intervals.

California has nearly 300 miles of beachfront, which generate about $10 billion of tourist-related revenue for the state economy. In 1998, El Niņo-generated seas washed away an estimated 5,000,000 cubic yards of sand, enough to fill 250,000 dump trucks. Some beaches lost up to 15 feet of height and many ended up with no sand at all, just rocks. Those beaches will have to be restored. It will be expensive, about $5 per cubic yard of sand. But the economic benefit of beach-related tourism outweighs the cost of rebuilding the damaged beaches, many of which still show damage from the last major El Niņo event, in 1982­1983.

Bacteria and Bathers

In other parts of the world many innocent-appearing beaches may be harmful to the health of humans. In the Mediterranean, for example, nearly 30 percent of the beaches pose health risks to bathers who go into the water. A recent survey showed that nearly 40 percent of the beaches in Great Britain are polluted to the point that some of them may pose significant health risks. Waterborne bacteria from land runoff and sewage dumping are the principal culprits making leisure-seekers ill.

Titanic Adventures

Two companies were formed last year to undertake adventure diving to famous seafloor sites: Deep Ocean Expeditions (DOE), a British company, and Zegrahm DeepSea Voyages, an American company based in Seattle, Wash. The two companies are leasing manned submersibles and support ships and will offer adventure cruises and dives to tourists. The first such cruise took place during the first two weeks in September 1998, with dives to 12,500 feet to visit the wreck of the Titanic. The well-known Russian MIR submersibles (capable of diving to 20,000 feet) were used on the dives.

Both DOE and Zegrahm are busy developing adventure diving projects for the year 2000. The Britannic, Lusitania, and Bismarck wreck sites are being considered as well as such nature-related sites as underwater volcanoes, precious coral forests, and some deep-ocean hydrothermal vent fields. Zegrahm is offering two Y2K expeditions, one to HMS Breadalbane (350 feet down, on the floor of Canada's Northwest Passage), the other on a search for the huge six-gilled sharks off Vancouver Island. DOE is planning year 2000 programs: (a) to visit the Titanic; and (b) to explore submarine volcanoes near the Azores.

Oceanographic research will be carried out during the expeditions. Experts with research interests in the project site will be invited to participate, the companies say, both as scientists and lecturers--and expedition participants will have the opportunity to become involved in the research work. At expedition's end the participants thus not only will have experienced a "true-life" adventure, they also will undoubtedly be much more "ocean aware"--and that alone will make the expeditions worthwhile.

DON WALSH served 25 years in the Navy, during which time he was involved in many aspects of Navy oceanographic activity. In 1975, he founded and chaired the Institute for Marine and Coastal Studies at the University of Southern California. He left that post in 1983 to devote full time to International Maritime Inc., which he founded in 1975 and still heads.

A Most Dangerous Year

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