Several years ago I realized there was a need for a marine
geomorphology book. As a de facto teacher of new hires in the
Bathymetry Division of the Naval Oceanographic Office, I wrote and
updated that training manual four times between 1980 and 1997.
After I retired in 1998, I decided to do just that, using the
materials that I had learned about and taught over the years.
However, what was really "out there" on the ocean floor and what
was supposed to be out there were not the same. As the surveyed
regions evolved, the realization came that things were not as they
should be with the tectonic working hypothesis. My paper content
evolved with the ocean data, so much so that trying to get that
published in the main-stream journals became more and more
difficult for whatever reasons. Using all of the survey data for
the north Atlantic basin yielded what we called a "superchart," one
which showed the basin in its entirety. Initially, I was thrown
into a hotbed of NAVOCEANO's researchers in 1973, working with
Peter Vogt primarily for about five months. Daily talks with Peter,
Bill Ruddiman, Allen Lowrie, Fred Bowles, Troy Holcombe, and
constant exposure to Lou Hemler taught me what was then known about
the ocean floor. Dave Epp came to NAVOCEANO on an ONR contract to
look at the location of all the seamounts in that basin. Our study
revealed a number considerably less than that which had been
proposed, about 900. We published that data. From the same
superchart I constructed a basin-wide diagram of the fracture
valleys. We presented both at an AGU meeting. The astute observer
noticed that all of the seamount chains were associated with the
ends of the fracture valleys. This tied in with a fewof the surveys
I had been senior scientist on in the Pacific where we discovered
many seamounts lying in the fracture zones. Will Sager, Don
Hussong, Patty Fryer, Brian Tucholke, and Brian Taylor were all
allowed in to see the NAVOCEANO data bases on Office of Naval
Research contracts, and I had the pleasure of working with them
all. They taught me a lot about plate tectonics, but mainly they
taught me to look at the data and see what was there. At that time,
the late 1980s, I realized that all was not as predicted by the
plate tectonic hypothesis, but was still able to get ready
acceptance of papers on whatever I was writing about. This was soon
to change. By the early 1990s I ceased publishing for a time to
digest other aspects, such as earthquake populations at subduction
zones. The realization that deep earthquakes occurred only at nine
spots worldwide was another eye-opener. Trying to get this
information published became more of a hassle that it was worth, as
I was getting tired of butting heads with the stone walls of
main-stream journal reviewers. In fact, it became next to
impossible. One author, tired of butting heads with me, published
some drivel trying to attack the data by saying that the positions
were incorrect. I admit that I was not allowed to say the minutes,
as in degrees- seconds-minutes, but we're not talking about
minuscule features here. Most of these are at least 50 nm in
diameter! At this time a new book in the NAVOCEANO library was
brought to my attention by my old friend, Allen Lowrie. In it was a
paper citing some of my work. I wrote to the author, thinking him
to be a bright young star on the horizon, that I had found a
kindred spirit. Little did I knowthat the primary author was a
world-famous exploration geologist who was actually older than I.
We collaborated for the rest of his life, and I started publishing
in different journals. Life anew! In the early 1990s we were able
to access the information from the GEOSAT, and Earth-orbitting
satellite collecting gravity data. Applying a high-pass filter to
that data revealed basin-wide trends. A comparison of the GEOSAT
data of the north Atlantic fracture valley diagram I had done a few
years before r
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