SIO Archive Film Collection
Special Collections & Archives, UC San Diego Library
Special Collections & Archives, UC San Diego
Copyright 2021
9500 Gilman Drive
La Jolla 92093-0175
Business Number: 858-534-2533
Fax Number: 858-534-5950
spcoll@ucsd.edu
Descriptive Summary
Contributing Institution:
Special Collections & Archives, UC San Diego
9500 Gilman Drive
La Jolla 92093-0175
Title: SIO Archive Film Collection
Identifier/Call Number: SMC 0042
Physical Description:
6 Linear feet
(3 cartons, one archive box, and 4 flat boxes)
Physical Description:
2 GB
of digital content
Date (inclusive): 1940-1983
Abstract: A collection of films, donated over many years and from different sources, to the Archives of the former Scripps Institution
of Oceanography Library. Film content covers research, expeditions, overviews of campus, and training films by the U.S. Navy.
Languages:
English
.
Scope and Content of Collection
This collection contains films documenting and introducing Scripps Institution of Oceanography research, expeditions, and
campus history. The collection also includes training and introductory science films created by the U.S. Navy, often with
the participation of Scripps Institution of Oceanography. Of special note are the expedition films, including amateur footage
from the MidPac and Monsoon Expeditions.
Materials are arranged chronologically within series and are grouped together by content in three series: 1) EXPEDITIONS,
2) U.S. NAVY FILMS, 3) MISCELLANEOUS.
Administrative History
This collection of films is comprised of over a dozen separate film accessions donated to the former SIO Archives at the Scripps
Institution of Oceanography Library between 1981 and 2007. As a group, these films were informally referred to as the "SIO
Film Collections." When the SIO Archives were transferred to stewardship of the UC San Diego Library's Special Collections
& Archives Program, a full survey of all audiovisual materials was completed, and films from various uncatalogued accessions
were consolidated and reorganized into one cohesive list in 2021.
Preferred Citation
SIO Archive Film Collection. SMC 42. Special Collections & Archives, UC San Diego.
Acquisition Information
Acquired 1981-2007
OFF-SITE STORAGE
COLLECTION STORED OFF-SITE. ALLOW ONE WEEK FOR RETRIEVAL OF MATERIALS.
Publication Rights
Digital copies of this material are intended to support research, teaching, and private study. Works in the public domain
may be used without prior permission. The original films for this collection are held by Special Collections & Archives, UC
San Diego Library. Publication rights are held by content creators where rights are unknown or undocumented.
Digital Content
Selected films from the collection have been digitized.
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Military oceanography
Science films
Nonfiction films
Oceanography
Silent films
Project Tektite
MidPac Expedition (1950)
Monsoon Expedition (1960-1961)
International Indian Ocean Expedition (1960-1965)
Billabong Expedition (1966)
Zetes Expedition (1966)
Styx Expedition (1968)
EASTROPAC Expedition (1967-1968)
MidPac Expedition - Compilation of 41 min. of footage aboard R/V Horizon, Roger Revelle and other scientists on deck, deployment
and recovery of scientific instruments, etc.
1950
Box 5, Folder 1
MidPac 16mm film (color, silent)
MidPac Expedition
Box 4, Folder 4
MidPac Betacam SP version (color, silent)
Box 2, Folder 6
Monsoon Expedition - 16mm film (color, silent)
1960
Monsoon Expedition
General note
Film by geophysicist John C. Harrison. Includes images of R/V Argo in Honolulu, scientists and instruments (gravity corer,
Edgerton bottom camera, piston corer, and early model LaCoste and Romberg marine gravity meter), Howland Island and Nanumea
Island, a seismic shot, a heat flow apparatus being lowered and recovered, and the Over the Line ceremony. Featured scientists
include: John Christopher Harrison, Richard Von Herzen, Alan Jones, Russell Raitt, George G. Shor, and others.
Footage including Monsoon Expedition - Digital video (color, silent)
1960
General
Content note: Ocean Beach, San Diego; Driving on Old Highway 80 in San Diego County; Onboard Argo, the Monsoon Expedition
ship, in downtown San Diego, with Gus Giobbi turning towards camera after ship's mast is filmed, and appearing later; In port
at a pier in Broome, Australia with steep gangplank due to tide; George and Betty Shor in front of white laundry vehicle;
offshore Krakatoa Island, Indonesia; tender ship Malita (Townsville Australia) hired for seismic work; Dick Von Herzen's heat
flow probe; piston corer; Crossing the Line (Equator) ceremony; tender boat which set off explosives for seismic work has
a tethered balloon so that the main ship could spot it far away if it got lost; at Mauritius; Dick Von Herzen's heat flow
probe; sonar pinger brought on deck; driving in Australia; equipment from inside Dick Von Herzen's heat flow probe is pulled
out, with Gus Giobbi in red hair and goatee; sonar pinger being deployed; Nansen bottle being deployed; shark fish with Dick
Von Herzen waving; ship's cook smoking a cigarette in a hammock in front of stacked dynamite; Hobart, Tasmania with Larry
Davis being put in an ambulance and taken away for medical care; dolphins; Australia.
Box 5, Folder 2
International Indian Ocean Expedition - 16mm film (color, with sound)
1963
International Indian Ocean Expedition
General note
Produced by the National Science Foundation (NSF), introducing the expedition, defining its goals, and demonstrating how oceanographic
data is collected.
Box 5, Folder 3
Billabong Expedition, Australia - 16mm film (color, silent)
1966
Billabong Expedition, Australia
General note
Produced by Alpha Helix Management Office and National Science Foundation (NSF), with credits to Stuart Jewell Productions.
Argo: Research vessel at Sea - Leg of Expedition Zetes on R/V Argo
1966
Box 4, Folder 5
Argo - Notes and time log by Lawson
Mid-Pacific Mountain Expedition, Styx-7 (digital video - color, with music soundtrack)
1968
Mid-Pacific Mountain Expedition, Styx Expedition, Leg 07
General note
Investigation aboard R/V Agassiz to assess whether or not ancient submerged islands once formed stepping stones to the Hawaiian
Archipelago. Participants included Richard Rosenblatt, Harry Ladd, Ned Allison, John Allen, William Newman, Ron McConnaughey,
and Tom Cukr.
Box 2, Folder 1
Tropical Eastern Pacific Expedition (TEPE) - 8mm film (color, silent)
1970
Tropical Eastern Pacific Expedition (EASTROPAC Expedition)
General note
Investigation assessing the impact of Acanthaster planci starfish on Eastern Pacific coral reefs, and its likely impact should
it get into the Caribbean. Poor to fair quality. Footage includes: Spencer Luke and another man in a small boat with a fish
trap; departure from Panama City and return; rocky wave-bound shores and booby birds on the Pacific side; low islands and
coral reefs of San Blas Island on the Caribbean side. Participants included Joseph Curry, William Newman, Tom Dana, Perry
Crampton, and Spencer Luke.
Box 2, Folder 2
Horizon Guyot, 7-Tow (Tow Mid-Pacific) - 8mm film (color, silent)
1970
General note
Use of a Deep Tow side-scanning sonar to survey ancient reefs, largely outcrops of Eocene chert. Participants included: Bill
Normark, Peter Lonsdale, and Bill Newman.
Box 2, Folder 3
Trans-equatorial Expedition (South Tow) - 8mm film (color, silent)
1971
General note
Expedition work compared abyssal plain faunas from under sterile and fertile equatorial surface waters. Participants included:
Robert Hessler, Eric Mills, Duane Hope, and William Newman.
Box 2, Folder 4
Albatross, 7-Tow - 8mm film (color, silent)
1972 January-February
Box 3, Folder 4
Bathythermograph Observations, Military Oceanography - 16mm films (color, silent)
1950
Bathythermograph Observations, Military Oceanography
General note
Bureau of Aeronautics training film. Soundtrack damaged.
Box 6, Folder 3
Occupying an Oceanographic Station, Military Oceanography - 16mm films (color, with sound)
1950
Occupying an Oceanographic Station, Military Oceanography
General note
Bureau of Aeronautics training film.
Box 3, Folder 3
Sea Surface Slicks and other related phenomena - 16mm film (color, with sound)
ca. 1960-1965
Sea Surface Slicks and other related phenomena
General note
Technical film by Bureau of Ships (BUSHIPS)/Navy Electronics Laboratory, regarding organic ocean slicks and associated ocean
temperature.
Box 3, Folder 2
Mission Oceanography - 16mm film (color, with sound)
1962
Mission Oceanography
General note
Produced by the US Naval Photographic Center. Training film about the Navy's involvement in oceanography from the 1840s onward,
including the history of the Naval Oceanographic Office. Historical scenes were filmed aboard the last American whaling ship,
Charles W. Morgan, in Mystic, Connecticut.
Box 6, Folder 2
Oceanography: Science for Survival - 16mm film (color, with sound)
1964
Oceanography: Science for Survival
General note
Produced by US Navy Inter-Agency Committee on Oceanography.
Box 7, Folder 1
Seapower for Security: Oceanographer of the Navy reports - 16mm film (color, with sound)
1964
Previous 17 of 21 results Next
Seapower for Security: Oceanographer of the Navy reports
General note
US Navy photographic Center on AWS and NOMAD programs for predicting ocean conditions. The film includes: Sealab I, Trieste,
Alvin, footage of missiles being launched from ships at sea, and the battery charging system on NOMAD.
Box 3, Folder 1
Conquest of Inner Space - 16mm film (color)
1964
Conquest of Inner Space
General note
Technical film by BUSHIPS about submersible dives, including the bathyscaphe Trieste. Produced by Navy Electronics Laboratory.
Box 7, Folder 2
Careers in Oceanography - 16mm film (color, with sound)
1965
General note
Bureau of Naval Weapons film, MN 10145. Film used to recruit oceanographers and demonstrate various career paths. Features
UC San Diego and Scripps Institution of Oceanography campus.
Box 7, Folder 3
Oceanic Research with Cousteau Diving Saucer - 16mm film (color, with sound)
1965-1966
General note
BUSHIPS/Navy Electronics Laboratory technical film.
Box 2, Folder 12
Voyage of the Elisha Kane - 16mm film (color, with sound)
ca. 1967
Voyage of the Elisha Kane
Box 2, Folder 10
Launching of (AGOR 14) R/V Melville - 16mm film (color, silent)
1968 July
Launching of (AGOR 14) R/V Melville
General note
Launch of an AGOR 14 (Auxiliary General Oceanography Research) oceanographic research vessel named MELVILLE at Defoe Shipbuilding
Company in Bay City, Michigan on July 10, 1968. The vessel was built by the U.S. Navy Oceanographic Office for the Scripps
Institution of Oceanography. The film includes: shipyard scenes, images of three vessels (including R/V MELVILLE and a U.S.
Navy Ship S.P. Lee), crowd at the launching, and workers using a crane to launch the vessel. Produced by J. Walczak.
Box 3, Folder 5
Sixty days beneath the sea: Tektite I - 16mm film (color, with sound)
1969
Sixty days beneath the sea: Tektite I
General note
Navy Air Systems Command film, MN-10841. Film features four oceanographers living and working on the ocean bottom during the
long continuous underseas experiment.
Box 8, Folder 1
Plankton: Life of the Sea - 16mm film (color, with sound)
1971
Plankton: Life of the Sea
General note
Produced by Naval Air Systems Command.
Box 8, Folder 3
Return to the Sea - 16mm film (color, with sound)
1975
Return to the Sea
General note
Produced by Navy Air Systems Command (MN 11492). Significant red-shifting, poor sound quality at beginning of film.
Box 8, Folder 2
Shark, Danger in the Sea - 16mm film (color, with sound)
1979
General note
On naval shark research programs.
Operation Crossroads: Baker and Able Day Tests, Bikini Atoll (digital video)
1946
General
Digital surrogate of an original film. Color, sound, approx 25 min 30 sec.
Box 1, Folder 1
Kenneth O. Emery testing coring device - 16mm film (b&w, silent)
1940 April 1
General note
Emery testing a coring device off the Scripps Institution of Oceanography pier in La Jolla, California.
Box 4, Folder 1
Undergraduate Library construction, Galbraith Hall, UC San Diego - VHS copy of original film
ca. 1965
Undergraduate Library construction, Galbraith Hall, UC San Diego
General note
First half in color; second half in black/white. Includes aerial shots. The Library does not own the original footage.
Box 2, Folder 9
Deep Sea Drilling Project short segment - 16mm film
ca. 1965
Box 1, Folder 4
H-L Building time lapse - Five 16mm films
ca. 1965
Science and the Sea
ca. 1965-1976
Box 1, Folder 7
Science and the Sea - 16mm film
Science and the Sea
General note
Film by the University of Arizona Radio and TV Bureau, with credits noting Scripps Institution of Oceanography. Written by
Harry Zeitlin, with cinematography by Mike Bell and Paul Glenn, and narrated by Chuck Lee. Features SIO, including: pan of
campus from Mt. Soledad, view of campus buildings, brief interviews with scientists (Edward Goldberg, Andrew Benson, Robert
Garrels, Tsaihwa Chow, and Hans Suess), and oceanographic vessels (R/V Melville and the platform FLIP).
Box 4, Folder 3
Science and the Sea - Betacam SP
Box 1, Folder 2-3
Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics, La Jolla, Production #1 - 16mm films
1966
General note
Produced by Frank Snodgrass, the Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics, and BBC. Labeled "IGPP Prod. #1; Prod: Frank
Snodgrass; Co: UCSD and BBC; 75-66393, UCSD (IGPP) 1021EC17-1021EC18."
Box 1, Folder 5
Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics, La Jolla, trim and outtakes - 16mm film
1966
General note
Labeled "Trim & Out take - Prod. #1 SWT-Dropwise." Core damaged.
Box 1, Folder 6
Wide World of Ocean Data Network: A Proposal - 16mm film (color, with sound)
1967
General note
Includes: charts and graphs on ocean currents, salinity and temperature profiles of ocean water, footage of world's largest
desalination plant, Westinghouse Electric Corporation, and Florida Keys Aqueduct Company.
Box 2, Folder 8
The Poisoned Sea - 16mm film (color, with sound)
1971
General note
By Moonlight Productions, Mountain View, California. Film about sewage off Palos Verdes Peninsula, California. Includes Scripps
Institution of Oceanography scientists serving as consultants and discussing pollution problems.
Box 2, Folder 7
Controlled experimental ecosystem built for National Science Foundation (NSF) CEPEX program - 16mm film (color, silent)
1973
Controlled experimental ecosystem built for the "CEPEX" Program of the National Science Foundation
General note
Film produced by National Science Foundation (NSF). Participating institutions included: Scripps Institution of Oceanography,
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Skidaway Institute of Oceanography, Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science,
Aberdeen Marine Laboratory of the Scottish Office Agriculture and Fisheries Department, Marine Science Directorate of the
Department of the Environment in Canada, and the University of British Columbia.
Box 3, Folder 6
Scripps Institution of Oceanography overview - 16mm film (color, with sound)
1983
General note
General overview of SIO, including images of ships, laboratories, and facilities. Produced by William Livingston Productions,
and shown at the Aquarium to school groups.
Box 2, Folder 5
SEASAT-A, Global Ocean Monitoring System - 16mm film (color, with sound)
undated
SEASAT-A, Global Ocean Monitoring System
General note
Produced by the Lockheed Missile and Space Company, Inc. Significant red-shifting.
Box 2, Folder 11
Experimental turbidity currents - 16mm film (b&w, silent)
ca. 1945
Experimental turbidity currents
General
Footage by marine geologist Philip H. Kuenen demonstrating how underwater currents can move suspended sediment loads down
slope, scouring underwater canyons, moving rocks and creating graded sediment layers.
