State Oceanographic Institute

(Goin) the main research and methodological institution of the Chief Administration of the Hydrometeorological Service of the USSR in the field of oceanography and marine hydrological calculations. The institute was founded in 1943 in Moscow as an outgrowth of the marine division of the State Hydrological Institute. It has branches in Leningrad, Odessa, and Sevastopol’ and a laboratory in Baku. The institute studies the physical and chemical processes and phenomena in oceans, seas, and sea mouths of rivers in order to provide reference data, calculations, predictions, and material on hydrometeorological and hydrochemical conditions for marine navigation, the fishing industry, and hydroengineer-ing projects. The institute also draws scientific conclusions about the hydrology and hydrochemistry of the oceans, seas, and sea mouths of rivers, works on the theory of hydrological processes, develops methods of calculating and predicting hydrological elements, and supervises the marine hydrometeorological stations, river mouth stations, and observatories that are the institute’s experimental and expeditionary bases on the seas of the USSR.

Marine research is conducted by oceanographic expeditions on the research ships Musson, Passat, Poryv, E. Krenkel’, and G. Ushakov, as well as other expeditionary vessels of the Hydrometeorological Service and other departments. The results are published in the institute’s Transactions (of which more than 150 issues had appeared by the end of 1973), monographs, methodological guides, instructions, reference works, and atlases. Each year the institute publishes a practical handbook for navigators with tide tables for Soviet and foreign seaports. The institute maintains contacts with foreign institutions in the fields of oceanography and marine hydrochemistry. It has a graduate program, including correspondence courses.