For example, take the role of radioisotope tracers: For the first time, these telltale atoms permit us to study the metabolism of tiny plankters, the often microscopic drifting creatures of the sea that in their incredible abundance form the base of the entire marine food chain, including fish eaten by humans. Even fallout isotopes from nuclear tests enable us to trace important physical oceanographic events, such as the ponderous process known as overturning, which transports oxygen-rich surface water to the deeps and nutrient-rich bottom water to the surface. Radioisotope tracers also provide a tool for studying the mechanics of littoral transport, which continually tears down some beaches and builds up others. They also enable us to determine if oceanic processes are likely to concentrate fallout particles and deliver them in dangerous doses through the food chain to our dinner tables.[4]
By using other nuclear energy technology, we are better able to ascertain the age and composition of deep ocean sediments and the rate at which they are deposited, how a tsunami (tidal wave) propagates across vast distances, how tides operate in the open ocean, where the brown shrimp of the Carolina coast go every fall, and the migration patterns of tuna, swordfish, and other valuable food fish.
Navy men preparing for undersea research by feeding Tuffy, a friendly porpoise, which later carried messages for them during the “Man-In-The-Sea” experiment. (Also see photos on [page 12].)
These are just a few of the answers we seek from the world ocean—answers important for more productive fisheries, more accurate long-range weather forecasting, possible control of hurricanes and typhoons, pollution control, safer and more economical shipping, better recreation, and numerous other matters that bear on our health, well-being, and day-to-day lives.
On all these endeavors the ocean exerts a major influence. And in each, atomic energy is helping assemble and interpret answers.
THE WORLD OCEAN
But what of this environment into which, armed with the atom, we plunge with such enthusiasm and expectations? A portrait is in order, which must be brief, for not all the books ever written about the sea have yet described it fully.
The world ocean covers 70.8% of our planet. It contains 324,000,000 cubic miles of seawater. Living in it are upwards of a million different species of plants and animals. They range from one-celled organisms that can only be seen with a microscope to the largest creature ever to have lived on this earth—the giant blue (or sulfur-bottom) whale, captured specimens of which have exceeded 90 feet in length and 100 tons in weight.
The ocean’s depth ranges from 600 feet or less above continental shelves to more than 35,000 feet at the Marianas Trench. The mean depth is 12,451 feet. Sea bottom topography includes wide plains, the world’s longest mountain range, steeply rising individual truncated peaks called guyots (pronounced gee-ohs), gentle slopes, narrow canyons, and precipitous escarpments. Mountains higher than Everest rise from the ocean floor and never pierce the surface.