Priorities for a national program of continental drilling for scientific purposes

Panels of the Continental Scientific Drilling Committee (CSDC) have established priorities within the areas for which they have responsibility: thermal regimes, basement structure and deep continental basins, active fault zones and downhole measurements, and mineral resources. These high priority projects were evaluated against the standards of scientific significance. Under these constraints the CSDC determined that (1) a continuing National Program of Continental Scientific Drilling is required, extending over a period of decades and dealing with a variety of critical problems in continental crustal structure, development, and tectonics; and (2) the experiment with highest immediate priority in what is expected to be a long term and scientifically rewarding program is a dedicated research hole in the Southern Appalachians to test the thin skinned tectonics model of crustal structure.