Dr. Fred Noel Spiess (December 25, 1919 – September 8, 2006) was a naval officer,

oceanographer Oceanography (), also known as oceanology, sea science, ocean science, and marine science, is the scientific study of the ocean, including its physics, chemistry, biology, and geology. It is an Earth science, which covers a wide range of top ...

and marine explorer. His work created new advances in marine technology including the FLIP Floating Instrument Platform, the Deep Tow vehicle for study of the

seafloor The seabed (also known as the seafloor, sea floor, ocean floor, and ocean bottom) is the bottom of the ocean. All floors of the ocean are known as seabeds. The structure of the seabed of the global ocean is governed by plate tectonics. Most of ...

, and the use of

acoustics Acoustics is a branch of physics that deals with the study of mechanical waves in gases, liquids, and solids including topics such as vibration, sound, ultrasound and infrasound. A scientist who works in the field of acoustics is an acoustician ...

for underwater navigation and geodetic positioning.

Education and career

Spiess (pronounced SPEES) was born in

Oakland, California Oakland is a city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area in the U.S. state of California. It is the county seat and most populous city in Alameda County, California, Alameda County, with a population of 440,646 in 2020. A major We ...

. He received an undergraduate degree from the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after t ...

and a master's degree from

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

. He received his doctorate in

physics Physics is the scientific study of matter, its Elementary particle, fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge whi ...

from UC Berkeley in 1951. After graduating in 1941 from Berkeley, he received a commission from the

US Naval Reserve The United States Navy Reserve (USNR), known as the United States Naval Reserve from 1915 to 2004, is the Reserve Component (RC) of the United States Navy. Members of the Navy Reserve, called reservists, are categorized as being in either the S ...

Officers Training Corps. During World War II, he made a record 13 war patrols on submarines in the

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five Borders of the oceans, oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean, or, depending on the definition, to Antarctica in the south, and is ...

and was awarded

Silver Silver is a chemical element; it has Symbol (chemistry), symbol Ag () and atomic number 47. A soft, whitish-gray, lustrous transition metal, it exhibits the highest electrical conductivity, thermal conductivity, and reflectivity of any metal. ...

and Bronze Stars for gallantry in combat. He continued in the Naval Reserve from 1946–56 and retired with the rank of captain, serving as the Deputy Oceanographer of the Navy from 1969 to 1974. Spiess' method for reckoning the position of an object from successive sonar contacts is still a standard for training of US Naval Officers. Spiess joined the Marine Physical Laboratory at the

Scripps Institution of Oceanography Scripps Institution of Oceanography (SIO) is the center for oceanography and Earth science at the University of California, San Diego. Its main campus is located in La Jolla, with additional facilities in Point Loma. Founded in 1903 and incorpo ...

in 1952 and served as director of the laboratory from 1958 to 1980. He served as director of the Scripps Institution from 1964 to 1965. Spiess was awarded the

John Price Wetherill Medal The John Price Wetherill Medal was an award of the Franklin Institute. It was established with a bequest given by the family of John Price Wetherill (1844–1906) on April 3, 1917. On June 10, 1925, the Board of Managers voted to create a silv ...

in 1965 and the

Maurice Ewing Medal Two international geophysical societies offer awards each year which are named in honor of Maurice Ewing; these are the American Geophysical Union and the Society of Exploration Geophysicists. AGU Ewing Medal The Maurice Ewing Medal is awarded by ...

in 1983. He was elected to the

National Academy of Engineering The National Academy of Engineering (NAE) is an American Nonprofit organization, nonprofit, NGO, non-governmental organization. It is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM), along with the National Academ ...

in 1985. He was a fellow of the

Acoustical Society of America The Acoustical Society of America (ASA) is an international scientific society founded in 1929 dedicated to generating, disseminating and promoting the knowledge of acoustics and its practical applications. The Society is primarily a voluntary org ...

, and was awarded their

Pioneers of Underwater Acoustics Medal The Pioneers of Underwater Acoustics Medal is awarded by the Acoustical Society of America in recognition of "an outstanding contribution to the science of underwater acoustics, as evidenced by publication of research results in professional journal ...

in 1985 for "his leadership and insight in applying acoustics to study the ocean and the sea floor, for his many ingenious scientific and engineering contributions; for his introduction of students, scientists, and many others to

underwater acoustics Underwater acoustics (also known as hydroacoustics) is the study of the propagation of sound in water and the interaction of the mechanical waves that constitute sound with the water, its contents and its boundaries. The water may be in the oce ...

R/P FLIP

Spiess is worked on the creation of R/P FLIP (Floating Instrument Platform), a unique research platform that is towed to the work area and then rotated to a vertical position to form a stable observation post in deep water. Spiess collaborated with Fred Fisher and Phillip Rudnick in development of the vessel. FLIP has been used to study the acoustics of

whales Whales are a widely distributed and diverse group of fully Aquatic animal, aquatic placental mammal, placental marine mammals. As an informal and Colloquialism, colloquial grouping, they correspond to large members of the infraorder Cetacea ...

and other marine mammals, heat exchange between the ocean and the atmosphere, and the effects of

seismic waves A seismic wave is a mechanical wave of acoustic wave, acoustic energy that travels through the Earth or another planetary body. It can result from an earthquake (or generally, a quake (natural phenomenon), quake), types of volcanic eruptions ...

on water.

Deep Tow

The development of the echo sounder for seafloor mapping was refined during

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

. Soon research ships crossing the oceans outlined the mid-ocean ridges,

fracture zones Fracture is the appearance of a crack or complete separation of an object or material into two or more pieces under the action of stress. The fracture of a solid usually occurs due to the development of certain displacement discontinuity sur ...

, and deep-sea trenches. Because these devices sent out broad-beam sound waves from the sea surface, details of the seafloor shape remained obscured by fuzzy smeared-out echoes. Ship navigation was so inaccurate that features smaller than a few kilometers across could not be mapped with any certainty. Spiess’ solution to the resolution and mapping problem was twofold; bring the echo sounder close to the seafloor and locate the device within a seabed survey navigation network. During the 1960s, Spiess and his engineers at the Marine Physical Laboratory of Scripps developed the Deep Tow instrument for mapping the deep seafloor from an altitude of tens of meters. The deep-tow instrument used a narrow-beam downward-looking echosounder, side-scan sonars, and subbottom profiling system to map features in unprecedented detail, e.g., geologic observations that approached that of outcrop mapping for land geologists. Evolution of the Deep Tow to improve seafloor mapping saw the addition of a

magnetometer A magnetometer is a device that measures magnetic field or magnetic dipole moment. Different types of magnetometers measure the direction, strength, or relative change of a magnetic field at a particular location. A compass is one such device, ...

, cameras, video, water samplers, plankton nets, and other instruments as more varied seafloor environments were examined. The Deep Tow instrument was notably used in Project FAMOUS, the first-ever geologic mapping of the median

rift valley A rift valley is a linear shaped lowland between several highlands or mountain ranges produced by the action of a geologic rift. Rifts are formed as a result of the pulling apart of the lithosphere due to extensional tectonics. The linear ...

of the

Mid-Atlantic Ridge The Mid-Atlantic Ridge is a mid-ocean ridge (a Divergent boundary, divergent or constructive Plate tectonics, plate boundary) located along the floor of the Atlantic Ocean, and part of the List of longest mountain chains on Earth, longest mountai ...

Acoustic transponders

Spiess recognized that obtaining detailed images of the seafloor was only one component that is necessary for making geologic maps of the deep-sea floor. The position of the Deep Tow vehicle must be known to within a few meters, thus leading to the development of the first seafloor acoustic

transponder In telecommunications, a transponder is a device that, upon receiving a signal, emits a different signal in response. The term is a blend of ''transmitter'' and ''responder''. In air navigation or radio frequency identification, a flight trans ...

positioning system for working in deep water. The acoustic transponder capability eventually evolved into instruments for acoustic

geodetic Geodesy or geodetics is the science of measuring and representing the geometry, gravity, and spatial orientation of the Earth in temporally varying 3D. It is called planetary geodesy when studying other astronomical bodies, such as planets ...

measurements by combining the technologies of seafloor acoustic beacons with shipboard GPS positioning. This geodetic system has been successfully deployed for directly measuring the direction of movement and speed of the oceanic Juan de Fuca lithospheric plate and for documenting movement on submarine landslides.

RISE expedition and black smoker hydrothermal vents

During the mid 1970s, several Deep Tow cruises to the mouth of the

Gulf of California The Gulf of California (), also known as the Sea of Cortés (''Mar de Cortés'') or Sea of Cortez, or less commonly as the Vermilion Sea (''Mar Vermejo''), is a marginal sea of the Pacific Ocean that separates the Baja California peninsula from ...

at 21^o N resulted in production of a geologic map of the

East Pacific Rise The East Pacific Rise (EPR) is a mid-ocean rise (usually termed an oceanic rise and not a mid-ocean ridge due to its higher rate of spreading that results in less elevation increase and more regular terrain), at a divergent tectonic plate bound ...

(EPR) spreading ridge axis. The map was then used as the base for conducting diving programs using both French and US crewed submersibles. These were the CYAMEX and RISE expeditions; the latter led by Spiess and Ken Macdonald. One of Spiess' projects during the RISE expedition (with Bruce Luyendyk) was to use the crewed submersible

ALVIN ''Alvin'' (DSV-2) is a crewed deep-ocean research submersible owned by the United States Navy and operated by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) of Woods Hole, Massachusetts. The original vehicle was built by General Mills' Electro ...

for seafloor

gravity In physics, gravity (), also known as gravitation or a gravitational interaction, is a fundamental interaction, a mutual attraction between all massive particles. On Earth, gravity takes a slightly different meaning: the observed force b ...

measurements across the axis of spreading. The diving expedition ultimately resulted in the discovery of high temperature black-smoker vents for which Spiess and his coauthors received the

Newcomb Cleveland Prize The Newcomb Cleveland Prize of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is annually awarded to author(s) of outstanding scientific paper published in the Research Articles or Reports sections of ''Science Science is a ...

for the best paper published in ''Science'' magazine in 1980.

Death

Spiess died September 8, 2006, in

San Diego, California San Diego ( , ) is a city on the Pacific coast of Southern California, adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a population of over 1.4 million, it is the List of United States cities by population, eighth-most populous city in t ...

, of

cancer Cancer is a group of diseases involving Cell growth#Disorders, abnormal cell growth with the potential to Invasion (cancer), invade or Metastasis, spread to other parts of the body. These contrast with benign tumors, which do not spread. Po ...

References

* Pearce, Jeremy. (September 25, 2006). ''Fred N. Spiess, 86; Helped Design Marine Station''. The New York Times, p. A27
Obituary notice, Scripps Institution of Oceanography News
{{DEFAULTSORT:Spiess, Fred American oceanographers Scripps Institution of Oceanography faculty 1919 births 2006 deaths Harvard University alumni Scientists from Oakland, California Scientists from San Diego University of California, Berkeley alumni Deaths from cancer in California Marine geophysicists United States Navy personnel of World War II