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In January 1974 the University of Texas established a milestone by collecting a multichannel seismic profile from an academic ship. This had never been done before by a university group, though it is a common and expensive oil exploration method of using sound waves to probe into the seafloor. There were several cruises through the summer and fall of 1973 as scientists and engineers struggled with UT's Research Vessel Ida Green and equipment donated by several oil companies. These data, when processed using mainframe computers at UT's Galveston Medical Branch, provided evidence for the offshore extent of salt in the Gulf of Mexico (Watkins, J. S., J. L. Worzel, M. H. Houston, M. Ewing, and J. B. Sinton, Deep seismic reflection: Results from the Gulf of Mexico: Part I, Science, 187, 834-836, 1975).
IG0601.SS-1B.stack -- First multichannel seismic data set collected by UTIG.
Section crosses the Sigsbee Scarp in the northern Gulf of Mexico.
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In the intervening years, UT has lead scientific investigations around the world, while training students in modern techniques of seismic exploration of the ocean floor's geology. From this beginning thirty years ago, the Institute for Geophysics scientists have collected over 180,000 km (97,000 miles) of data from as far north as offshore Alaska to and nearly as far south as the Antarctic Circle. During 2004 four new research projects are planned. Image profiles from the past thirty years are available online at a newly develop data management system (www.ig.utexas.edu/srws), created to support continued access to these data by scientists. Since the images offer visual cross-sectional views of the Earth (much like road cuts along highways), they are often viewed by curious students and the public.
