Wire-drag surveying After completing college, Heck accepted civilian employment with the
United States Coast and Geodetic Survey in 1904. That year, the Coast and Geodetic Survey introduced the
wire-drag method of conducting
hydrographic surveys, which prior to the advent of
sidescan sonar and multibeam sonar late in the 20th century was the only means of searching large areas of water for underwater obstructions or sunken ships or aircraft. Between 1906 and 1916, Heck was responsible for much of the development of the wire-drag technique, expanding the capability of wire-drag systems from a relatively limited area to sweeps covering channels two to three
nautical miles (3.7 to 5.6 km) in width. Wire-drag surveying played a notable role in clearing unsurveyed channels in the waters of
Alaska, discovered hundreds of obstructions elsewhere, and proved particularly useful to the
United States during its participation in
World War I. The wire-drag technique was a major contribution to hydrographic surveying during much of the rest of the 20th century, not falling into disuse until the early 1990s.
World War I The United States entered World War I on the side of the
Allies on 6 April 1917. On 22 May 1917, the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey Corps – the ancestor of the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Commissioned Officer Corps – was created as a new
uniformed service of the United States to enhance the participation of the Coast and Geodetic Survey in the war effort. Heck was
commissioned as a
lieutenant in the new service, and was among Coast and Geodetic Survey Corps officers transferred on 24 September 1917 under
Executive Order 2707 to the
United States Naval Reserve Force for wartime duty with the
United States Navy. On 24 September 1917, the day of his assignment to the Navy, Heck was commissioned as a lieutenant in the Naval Reserve Force, and on 9 October 1917 he was assigned to the Naval Experimental Station at
New London,
Connecticut. His work there, under the Special Board of
Anti-Submarine Devices, involved study of a number of complicated topics but centered around the use of
underwater acoustics as a means of detecting
submarines and developing a trailing wire device for locating submarines at rest on the sea bottom. On 18 September 1918, he was reassigned to U.S. Naval Headquarters in
London,
England, to put into operational use the equipment developed during his time in New London. Preparations to put the equipment into service were completed on 5 November 1918, but on 7 November he received orders to suspend operations. The war ended on 11 November 1918, and after that the operation of the new antisubmarine equipment ceased entirely. During the next few years, developments in the application of acoustics to
depth sounding and
navigation would afford him an opportunity to revolutionize
hydrographic surveying techniques. By the immediate post-World War I period, research into the use of acoustics had resulted in a primitive ability to use sound to measure depths by bouncing it off the sea bottom and measuring the time it took the sound to make the round trip. By early 1923, experiments in this area by the
United States Department of the Navy, as well as by the French and the British, suggested to Heck that the Coast and Geodetic Survey should look into adopting this new technique of
echo sounding into its surveying work, Heck oversaw tests at Coast and Geodetic Survey headquarters in Washington, D.C., that demonstrated that shipboard recording of the time of an explosion could be performed accurately enough for his concept to work.
Seismology Heck served as Chief of the Coast and Geodetic Survey's Division of Seismology and Terrestrial Magnetism In the 1930s, he drew attention to a correlation between earthquake
epicenters and the
Mid-Atlantic Ridge,
Other duties During his career, Heck served as the
commanding officer of the five of the largest survey ships in the Coast and Geodetic Survey's fleet. Heck's final position was Scientific Assistant to the Director of the Coast and Geodetic Survey, who at the time was
Rear Admiral Leo Otis Colbert. Heck retired with the rank of
captain on 30 April 1945. ==Awards==