Ocean Forms - Ocean Worlds: The Story of Seas on Earth and Other Planets - page 51

earthquakes. About half of the movement, though, occurs by sudden
fits and starts, where the boundary between the two plates initially
locks up through friction. Pressure then builds up until the down-
going plate suddenly, catastrophically, slips, unleashing enormous
amounts of energy in the form of earthquakes and tsunamis.
The ocean basins are hence young by comparison with the truly
ancient and permanent continents, which may be up to 20 times
(or more) older.
We now know a great deal about the oceans, because of a scientific
undertaking that has been revolutionary, but that has been carried
out in near obscurity and remains largely unsung. It has been mostly
a hidden revolution, without fanfare and away from public gaze—and
yet it has transformed our understanding of the Earth.
The Albatross and the Ocean Revolution
The history of scientific drilling in the oceans starts with what must
count among the most cherished and—alas—short-lived of scientific
institutions. This was the American Miscellaneous Society, or AMSOC
for short. AMSOC was set up in 1952 by Carl Alexis and Gordon Lill,
geophysicists at the Office of Naval Research. They had been going
through a pile of scientific proposals, each of which could not be cat-
egorized as anything other than individual: hence, they were miscel-
laneous. From that, it was but a short step to the creation of AMSOC.
As the oceanographer Willard Bascom later recounted, any scien-
tist could claim membership, because there were no membership
rolls—although he denied the rumours that only those with research
proposals too far-fetched to receive government funding could be
admitted (it was, he said, merely coincidence). Nor were there bylaws, 41
officers, or membership dues. The motto of AMSOC was classically
coined Illegitimi non Carborundum , which roughly translates as 'Don't
let the bastards grind you down'.