Ocean Survey This Year

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31340, 10 April 1967, Page 7

Ocean Survey This Year

(N.Z. Press Association) WELLINGTON, April 7.

The largest and most modern ocean surveyship in the United States, the Oceanographer, will call at Wellington on October 2 in the course of a round-the-world scientific expedition. Twelve other nations are taking part in the eightmonth, 37,000-mile voyage,

which will take the ship from Jacksonville from where it left last week—to Seattle, Washington, via the Atlantic Ocean, the Mediterranean Sea, he Red Sea, Arabian Sea, Indian Ocean and the Pacific Ocean.

The 303 ft ship was commissioned last summer by President Johnson. The. President invited other maritime nations to join the expedition in an endeavour to “farm” and explore the seas. Foreign Scientists

Scientists from the following countries are expected to take part in the research programme on various legs of the voyage: New Zealand, Canada, Great Britain, Italy, West Germany, the Soviet Union,

India, Iran, Malaysia, Australia, Chile and Peru. Points of call on the trip will be: Plymouth, Monte Carlo, Odessa, Massaua (Ethiopia), Bombay, Penang, Fremantle, Sydney, Wellington, Valparaiso, and Callao (Peru). The Andaman Sea, between the Andaman islands and the Malay peninsula, will be the site of one of the ship’s specific investigations. Previous oceanographic expeditions to that area have found an abnormal amount of heat flowing from the earth beneath the sea. It is believed that the heat may be affecting the circulatory pattern of the water, which could in turn have an effect on the area’s fishing and weather.