Melvin N.A. Peterson; Scripps Institution Geologist

Melvin N.A. Peterson, 66, former director of the international Deep Sea Drilling Project at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, San Diego. He was appointed the drilling project’s chief scientist in 1967 and its director in 1971. For more than 15 years, the project’s drilling ship Glomar Challenger explored the world’s oceans, drilling and removing core samples from beneath the sea floor. Scripps officials said the project was the outstanding geophysical program of the century, and that Peterson was the major contributor to its success. He retired from Scripps in 1987 and was appointed the first chief scientist for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration by President Ronald Reagan. On Sept. 20 of a heart attack while on a fishing trip in Mexico.