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The United States and Russia agreed to continue cooperation in ocean research, following a recently completed meeting of the U.S.- Russian Joint Committee on Cooperation in Ocean Studies, the Commerce Department's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced today.
The meeting produced agreements to continue joint research into southern ocean dynamics, the circulation of the Bering and Chukchi Seas, mid-Atlantic ridge crest processes, and the geochemistry of marine sediments.
Both sides also discussed the exchange of oceanographic data, participation in the International Oceanographic Commission, and access to territorial waters by each other's ocean research vessels.
NOAA Assistant Administrator for Oceanic and Atmospheric Research Ned Ostenso, who headed the U.S. delegation, said, "The progress made in our discussions is clear evidence of the growing friendship between our two countries and our willingness to work together to solve environmental problems. The synergism in oceanographic research and scientific cooperation that will accrue from this agreement will significantly advance our scientific understanding of the world's oceans, not just to the benefit of our two nations but to the common good of all the nations of the world."
Leopold I. Leontiev, first deputy minister of science and technology policy for the Russian federation, headed the Russian delegation, which hosted the meeting at the prestigious Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute in St. Petersburg Sept. 19-21.
The delegations agreed to consider a number of new joint initiatives, including the development of standards for low-level radioactivity in the marine environment; the use of drilling platforms as bases for ecological and oceanographic monitoring; the use of marine organisms, particularly large masses of ocean vegetation, in developing new pollution remediation techniques and other new environmental technologies; tsunami warnings; the use of acoustic techniques to monitor ocean currents; research into the role of thermohaline circulation in climate change; studies of coastal ocean processes; and integrated coastal zone management.
Both countries extended the current ocean agreement for five years and agreed to hold the next meeting of the joint committee in the United States in mid-1997.