Environment: Squeezing More Out of the Seas

As oceanographers view it, there is something unreal about the debate over who owns what in and under the sea. Says Manik Talwani, director of Columbia University's famed Lamont-Doherty Geological Observatory: "Mankind knows more about some aspects of the moon than it does about some of the land right off its coasts."

Fortunately, marine scientists from many countries are busy sampling, probing and testing the seas and the seabed in many areas, using some dazzling gadgets (see color pages). Off the Azores, French and American scientists are diving to depths of almost two miles...