GEOSECS - GEochemical Oceans SECtions Study

As an undergrad math major at UCSD winter quarter 1993, Kris Beard had a student assistant job, helping Sandy Tacoma working to support Professor Harmon Craig of SIO, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, in the Isotope Laboratory, in the basement of Ritter Hall. HC obit

In December 2023, I met Ed Slater at the Encinitas Senior Center Computer Lab.

I found a GREAT video from NSF providing an overview of GEOSECS with interviews of actual participants. Thanks UCSD Library Archives.
1975 "Rivers of the Sea the story of GEOSECS"; txt

2000 https://www.prl.res.in/~library/Somayajulu_BLK_2000_abst pdf Paradox lost: silicon 32 and the global ocean silica cycle, H. Craig, B.L.K. Somayajulu, K.K. Turekian

img

Award Abstract # 7104197 Feb 1971 - June 1976

"GEOSECS- Acquisition and Construction of Shipboard Analytical Equipment and Hydrographic and Sampling Systems", PI is Harmon Craig hcraig@ucsd.edu, SIO;

Award Abstract # 7724834 Jan 1978 - Dec 1980 (est)

"Geochemical Ocean Sections Study (Geosecs) - Indian Ocean Studies: Mass Spectrometric Measurements of He-3, Rare Gases and Stable Isotopes", John Lupton (Principal Investigator) lupton@pmel.noaa.gov; Harmon Craig (Co-Principal Investigator)

Award Abstract # 8612003 Dec 1986 - Nov 1988 (est)

"Submersible Studies in the Mariana Trough and on the Loihi Seamount; and Central Pacific Transect, 25oN to 35oS" Harmon Craig (Principal Investigator) hcraig@ucsd.edu, Yoshio Horibe (Co-Principal Investigator)

Award Abstract #9002478 July 1990 - June 1994 (est) pdf

"WOCE Hydrographic Program Section Along 88 Degrees West and 150 Degrees West", Harmon Craig (Principal Investigator) hcraig@ucsd.edu
ABS - This proposal is to make helium measurements on the World Ocean Circulation Experiment (WOCE) cruises in the central Pacific on longitude 150 west. The helium data are useful as tracers of the deep ocean circulation, particularly in regions near the east Pacific rise from which elemental helium is known to emanate. These measurements, along with hydrographic and other tracer measurements will form the basis for ocean circulation descriptions and models which are the principal objectives of WOCE.

GEOSECS Pacific Expedition V3 pdf 154 pgs

Ocean Data View - GEOSECS 1974 GEOSECS Objectives, Plan & Benefits pdf

• 1975 Peter Kroopnick "Respiration, photosynthesis, and oxygen isotope fractionation in oceanic surface water1" pdf
• 1976 The GEOSECS Program 1973-1976, H. Craig, SIO; K.K. Turekian, Yale; EPSL 1976 pdf
  "THE GEOSECS PROGRAM: 1973-1976 H. CRAIG Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California at San Diego, La Jolla, Calif. 92093 (USA) and K.K. TUREKIAN Department of Geology and Geophysics, Yale University, New Haven, Conn. 06520 (USA) Received August 23, 1976
  Geochemical Ocean Sections (GEOSECS) is one of the major programs of the International Decade of Ocean Exploration, a multi-nation cooperative study of the world oceans during the period 1970-1980. The GEOSECS program itself began in 1967 as a plan for a series of expeditions in the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans which would provide a framework for the application of geochemical and hydrographic measurements to the study of circulation and mixing processes in the world oceans. The concept of a large-scale geochemical ocean survey, coupled with more precise measurements of temperature, salinity, and density than had previously been attempted, has now been realized in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, and a brief chronology of the major steps along the way is worth setting down at this stage.
  (1) The first GEOSECS intercalibration and testing station, in the Pacific Ocean (28°29'N, 121°38'W), between September 23-30, 1969. The results from this station, "GEOSECS-I", were published in the Journal of Geophysical Research (volume 75, pp. 7639-7696, 1970). The GEOSECS-I station has since been occupied three more times (November 1971, as GOGO-I; April 1972, as GOGO-II; and as the last station of Leg 10 of the Pacific GEOSECS expedition station 347 - on June 8, 1974). * GEOSECS Publication No. 88.
  (2) The second GEOSECS intercalibration station, "GEOSECS-II", in the Atlantic Ocean (35°46.5'N, 67°59 8'W), between August 24 and September 2, 1970. The results of this intercalibration were re- ported primarily in the second cluster of GEOSECS papers, published in Earth and Planetary. Science Letters (volume 16, pp. 47-145, 1972). This station was reoccupied in June 1972 and again as the last station of Leg 9 of the Atlantic GEOSECS expedition - station 121 - on March 30, 1973.
  (3) The third GEOSECS intercalibration station, "GEOSECS -III", in the Pacific Ocean (17 ° 58'S, 172 ° 0 l'W) in August 1971. The results of this study were published in Earth and Planetary Science Letters (volume 23, pp. 63-159, 1974).
  (4) The Atlantic GEOSECS expedition carried out aboard the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution R.V. "Knorr", July 18, 1972 to April 4, 1973. The first results of this expedition appeared in the third collec- tion of GEOSECS papers, published in Earth and Planetary Science Letters (volume 23, pp. 63-159, 1974) and have been appearing in various journals since.
  (5) The Pacific GEOSECS expedition carried out aboard the Scripps Institution of Oceanography R.V. "Melville", August 22, 1973 to June 10, 1974. In addition to the U.S. Atlantic and Pacific expeditions, scientists from Germany and Japan have carried out similar work aboard F. S. Meteor in two ... "
• 1980 Carbonate chemistry of the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans : the results of the GEOSECS expeditions, 1972-1978 Taro Takahashi, Wallace S. Broecker, Arnold E. Bainbridge, R. F. Weiss pdf 218 pgs
• 1984 Review of the GEOSECS Project 1984 Willard S. Moore pdf
  Abs - "The Geochemical Ocean Sections Study (GEOSECS) provided the first comprehensive data set for the distribution of chemical species in the world ocean. For the first time chemists who measured nutrients, radiosotopes, stable isotopes, carbon, gases, race metals, and particles were on the same ship working on the same or almost the same samples. They were supported by high quality hydrographic data available soon after each leg was completed. There were numerous intercomparison studies involving different laboratories which helped to sort out many analytical problems. But the data themselves provided an even more valuable criteria as the principle of oceanographic consistency began to be appreciated. This principle states that chemical data from the ocean generally follow relatively simple patterns illustrated by profiles of salinity, temeerature, nutrients, oxygen or other tracers which have been measured reliably. Even if several laboratories produced similar data sets of widely scattered concentrations of a trace metal, the data would be suspect unless some reason could be found for the scatter. This principle is still not widely appreciated by chemists studying other natural waters."
• Major_International_Programs in Ocean Sciences - Ocean Chemistry; from 50 Years of Ocean Discovery: National Science Foundation 1950-2000 pdf Peter G Brewer
  Copied from Peter Brewer above, "It was plain at the outset that the GEOSECS program would be fundamentally different in style and scale than anything before. It was also very confusing. At least three major institutions were big players: Scripps, where Harmon Craig had persuaded Arnold Bainbridge to set up the GEOSECS Operations Group that was to craft the advanced instrumentation and staff the technical support activity; Lamont, where Wally Broecker had pioneered many of the radiochemical tracer techniques and gas exchange rate concepts; and Woods Hole, which was to provide the RV Knorr for the first, Atlantic, expedition and where Derek Spencer created the coordinating center. Karl Turekian at Yale and Gote Ostlund at Miami provided wisdom and refereed the sometimes amazing disputes that arose. Incidents involving fire extinguishers, epoxy, and roller derby are best not mentioned here. At each institute there were young scientists eager to be involved, but all had different views on what would be needed and on how to make a personal scientific effort within this large enterprise. "
  
  1972-1978 GEOSECS cruise tracks (jpg)