The American Miscellaneous Society (AMSOC - 1952 to 1964) was formed by Gordon Lill, of the Office of Naval Research, as an organization designed to collect various Earth science research

Research

Research can be defined as the scientific search for knowledge, or as any systematic investigation, to establish novel facts, solve new or existing problems, prove new ideas, or develop new theories, usually using a scientific method...

 ideas that were submitted by scientists to the U.S. Navy and didn't fit into any particular category. Membership in AMSOC was open to everyone and so there was no official membership list. Prospective members could join whenever two or more members were together. The most famous project to come out of AMSOC was the Project Mohole

Project Mohole

Project Mohole was an ambitious attempt to drill through the Earth's crust into the Mohorovičić discontinuity, and to provide an Earth science complement to the high profile Space Race. The project was initially led by the American Miscellaneous Society with funding from the National Science...

, whose goal was to drill into the Earth's mantle

Mantle (geology)

The mantle is a part of a terrestrial planet or other rocky body large enough to have differentiation by density. The interior of the Earth, similar to the other terrestrial planets, is chemically divided into layers. The mantle is a highly viscous layer between the crust and the outer core....

. The society dissolved itself in 1964.

External links

• History of the Mohole Project and the AMSOC by the National Academies
• The Albatross Award of the American Miscellaneous Society by the Scripps Institution of Oceanography Archives