OCR Text |
Show Oceanographers Sound Age Of Atlantic Ocean "Where is the nearest land?" asked the terrified passenger on a storm-wracked ship. "Only two miles away straight down," replied the cap-I cap-I tain. I The land beneath the sea more than twice as much land as there is above the sea is a huge but still little known asset for man, in his incessant hunt for more food, more metals, mare oil, more chemicals more of everything. Oceanographers of the Albatross Alba-tross Ocean Bottom expedition, headed by Professor Hans Pet-tersson Pet-tersson of Sweden, have just reported new facts about the Atlantic Ocean that its age is about 500,000,000 years instead in-stead of a mere 70,000,000 as had been previously supposed, that its bottom is lined with a layer of sediment 12,000 feet in thickness, covering the bedrock bed-rock beneath. Measurements of this sediment, which accumulates accumu-lates at the rat of one inch in every 4,000 years, was the basis bas-is for the new estimate of the ocean's age. |