Continental Scientific Drilling — A Scientific Frontier

Man is a curious animal — always seeking to know what remains unknown -always pressing toward new frontiers. Where are these frontiers in the Earth Sciences? We have had centuries to study the earths surface and we know a great deal about it — much remains to be learned of course, but it is no longer the frontier. The frontiers seem to me to lie in two directions — one above and one below the surface. Above the surface we have the vastly complex interactive systems that involve the atmosphere, the hydrosphere, the lithosphere and the biosphere — systems which must be understood because man’s intervention in them threatens their stability and even the viability of the surface environment in which we live. Below the surface lie the mysteries of the earth’s interior — less known to man from direct observation, than any other frontier within his reach. It is this frontier that the present symposium addresses. To pursue it we have two basically different approaches at our command — one indirect and one direct. The indirect method consists of an arsenal of sophisticated geophysical techniques which can probe below the surface in wonderful ways with reflected and refracted energy, and can measure gravity, magnetic and electrical properties.