Scripps Institution of Oceanography

Field participation in the International Indian Ocean Expedition by scientists and research vessels of the University of California's Scripps Institution of Oceanography comprises three multi-program investigations: MONSOON (1960-1), LUSIAD (1962-3) and DODO (1964). All three expeditions, though first broadly outlined in 1959, lie within the cooperative international exploration of the Indian Ocean being sponsored by the Scientific Committee on Oceanic Research and UNESCO. Therefore, though original schedules have to date been met, the programs have in fact been influenced and modified by the plans, interests and findings of other agencies and laboratories, and direct participation by marine scientists, students and trainees from other areas has been welcomed. Although the final SIO IIOE cruise, DODO, is just underway, a preliminary report on some generalized results of the first two expeditions seems appropriate now, with the clear understanding that many conclusions stated here may indeed be premature. Final analyses, syntheses and results will appear in more specialized formal publications and in the proposed SCOR-sponsored atlases which eventually will summarize Indian Ocean Expedition findings.

At Scripps Institution, it is customary to give names, rather than number designations, to the major expeditions. The 1960-1 investigation, 3 ½ months in the Indian Ocean, embraced the first SIO field work in the "monsoon seas". It was funded primarily by the Office of Naval Research of the Navy Department, with auxiliary support for personnel and special equipment from the Bureau of Ships and the National Science Foundation. The primarily two-ship 1962-3 cruise, 11 ½ calendar months in the Indian Ocean, drew its name from "Os Lusiadas", the epic epic poem (ca. 1572) of Luis Camões celebrating the early explorations of the Indian Ocean by Portuguese navigators. LUSIAD was a joint operation of the University of California and the University of Rhode Island; the two three-months' equatorial current studies, aboard Argo, were planned and carried out under the over-all direction of John Knauss, formerly of SIO, now Dean of the Graduate School of Oceanography of URI. In greater part, LUSIAD was funded nearly equally by the Navy Department (through ONR and BuShips contracts) and by the National Science Foundation (NSF G-22255). The current cruise on Argo, DODO, receives its support from these same sources. Its name, with a slight bow to Lewis Carroll of course, commemorates the now-extinct flightless bird of Mauritius, an island intimately linked with all three SIO cruises to the Indian Ocean.