has a huge responsibility. Its domain spans the 95,000 miles of shoreline and 3.4 million square nautical miles of coastal, Great Lakes, and deep- ocean waters that make up the U.S. Exclusive Economic Zone. Lacking the resources to survey such vast expanses of ocean floor, Coast Sur- vey had no choice but to prioritize; roughly 500,000 square nautical miles of ocean have been identified as navi- gationally significant to deep-draft shipping. The agency surveys approxi- mately 3,000 of those square nautical miles every year. At that rate, it will take 166 years to get the job done — except the job is never done; the ocean floor is in constant flux. “We’d like to get to 10,000 square

nautical miles [a year], so that we could at least get a 50-year refresh rate,” Barnum says. Substantial swaths of ocean have

yet to be surveyed adequately. The data used to chart long stretches of coastline were collected in previous centuries using simple lead lines. Despite advances in technology, the U.S. still relies on Russian charts to navigate parts of Alaska’s shore. As Barnum says, “We have better maps of the moon than we do of our own ocean.” Undaunted, Coast Survey scans the seafloor, relying on NOAA’s fleet of versatile ships and aircraft

Coast Survey’s domain spans 95,000 miles of shoreline and 3.4 million coastal, Great Lakes, and deep-ocean waters that make up the U.S. Exclu

as well as the service of its com- missioned officers in the Office of Marine and Aviation Operations to “mow the grass,” as the slow, pains- taking survey work aptly is called.

Wire dragging (left) was used in hydrographic surveying from the early 1900s to the early 1990s. (above) This illustration shows the importance of accurate hydrographic surveying for ships traveling in shal- low, narrow channels.

5 4 MI L I T A R Y O F F I C E R MAY 2 0 1 0

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