My choice of this career was due to the fact that I always wanted to attain new
horizons and explore the unknown. Oceanography was a change from the routine
of land-based geology or laboratory work, which often involved mapping or remapping or analyzing and re-analyzing the same area and material. Even so, there
were still the serious barriers of finding funding for our work! Scientific proposals
for projects that required a great deal of financial investment were difficult to write
and successfully obtain, and sometimes there were complicated issues to be
resolved.
‘‘Fundamental research at sea was and still is one of the key aspects for
discovery and it increases scientific knowledge by means of understanding the
mechanisms that make our planet Earth change and evolve.’’ This message had to
be constantly reiterated by the scientists of our department in order to enable their
projects to be accepted by the various funding agencies at all the different levels of
the IFREMER administration. Any proposal had to go through several persons
who were directly or indirectly responsible for its approval.
In the end, in my case, it was thanks to outside institutions such as the Institut
Physique du Globe (IPG) in Paris and the University of Kiel in Germany that most
of the cruises that I participated on during the last 15 years of my career were
funded. I still find this fact difficult to accept. I was actually very disappointed that
my own research institution IFREMER seemed to refuse or appeared to make very
little effort to support and encourage my research after Xavier Le Pichon and Yves
La Prairie left the center.
From its beginning in 1968 until about 1974, the department of marine sciences
of CNEXO-IFREMER was able to meet its goal of carrying out high quality
fundamental research in the growing field of oceanography. The personnel hired at
the time all had previous experience at sea and had worked in various international
institutions prior to coming to the institute. This was thanks to the determination of
Xavier Le Pichon who had the trust of La Prairie and who was therefore able to
successfully direct competitive programs in marine geology. Unfortunately, after
1974, things slowly changed, but luckily I had established some contacts with
other groups so my research could continue according to my defined goals.
Scientific Projects
To conduct a scientific project one has to be aware that science does not have any
frontiers and in order to understand the nature and evolution of the Earth we are
sometimes obliged to explore remote and uncharted areas. It is often difficult to
convince funding agencies that understanding scientific processes cannot be
achieved by exploring our own back yard. Major discoveries have often been made
when data were gathered and evaluated after many expeditions from different
environments.
There is always a logical, scientific approach when proposing and conducting
ocean-going investigations. For example, one of the first aims, after fine-tuning the
Personal Feelings and Experience
13
horizons and explore the unknown. Oceanography was a change from the routine
of land-based geology or laboratory work, which often involved mapping or remapping or analyzing and re-analyzing the same area and material. Even so, there
were still the serious barriers of finding funding for our work! Scientific proposals
for projects that required a great deal of financial investment were difficult to write
and successfully obtain, and sometimes there were complicated issues to be
resolved.
‘‘Fundamental research at sea was and still is one of the key aspects for
discovery and it increases scientific knowledge by means of understanding the
mechanisms that make our planet Earth change and evolve.’’ This message had to
be constantly reiterated by the scientists of our department in order to enable their
projects to be accepted by the various funding agencies at all the different levels of
the IFREMER administration. Any proposal had to go through several persons
who were directly or indirectly responsible for its approval.
In the end, in my case, it was thanks to outside institutions such as the Institut
Physique du Globe (IPG) in Paris and the University of Kiel in Germany that most
of the cruises that I participated on during the last 15 years of my career were
funded. I still find this fact difficult to accept. I was actually very disappointed that
my own research institution IFREMER seemed to refuse or appeared to make very
little effort to support and encourage my research after Xavier Le Pichon and Yves
La Prairie left the center.
From its beginning in 1968 until about 1974, the department of marine sciences
of CNEXO-IFREMER was able to meet its goal of carrying out high quality
fundamental research in the growing field of oceanography. The personnel hired at
the time all had previous experience at sea and had worked in various international
institutions prior to coming to the institute. This was thanks to the determination of
Xavier Le Pichon who had the trust of La Prairie and who was therefore able to
successfully direct competitive programs in marine geology. Unfortunately, after
1974, things slowly changed, but luckily I had established some contacts with
other groups so my research could continue according to my defined goals.
Scientific Projects
To conduct a scientific project one has to be aware that science does not have any
frontiers and in order to understand the nature and evolution of the Earth we are
sometimes obliged to explore remote and uncharted areas. It is often difficult to
convince funding agencies that understanding scientific processes cannot be
achieved by exploring our own back yard. Major discoveries have often been made
when data were gathered and evaluated after many expeditions from different
environments.
There is always a logical, scientific approach when proposing and conducting
ocean-going investigations. For example, one of the first aims, after fine-tuning the
Personal Feelings and Experience
13