The motorsailer "Istriano", renamed "Seismo", was purchased by OGS for the first measurements in the northern Adriatic. A winch was installed at the stern to lower the bathysphere with the gravimeter to the bottom.

The ship "Francesco Vercelli" owned by OGS (originally a Norwegian deep-sea fishing boat that arrived in Trieste as a fishing-guard vessel during the time of the Allied Military Government) with which gravimetry and refraction and reflection seismic campaigns were carried out in the Mediterranean, oceanography in the Northern Adriatic and, finally, bathymetry surveys along the Italian mainland coasts, Sardinia, Elba Island and the Venice Lagoon.

She was seized by a Yugoslavian patrol boat off Punta Salvore in August 1966 and released after payment of a fine. In 1955, it took part in the first seismic survey in the study for the Messina Straits bridge organised by the Lerici Foundation.

Deep-sea fishing vessel, ice class, "Harmony" (flying the Norwegian flag) chartered for the Arctic campaign in Svalbard.

The vessel is a 30 m long patrol boat of the British Navy. OGS bought it from a furniture manufacturer in financial difficulties and renamed it "GEOMAR". Its first operations for OGS were a reflection seismic study in the Adriatic Sea, then a gravimetric study in the Strait of Sicily, refraction seismic between Calabria and Sicily, a reflection seismic study in the Lagoon of Venice and a geomorphological and oceanographic study for the construction of the gas pipeline north of the Strait of Messina.

The ship's speed, however, lends itself for chemical-oceanographic studies in the northern Adriatic. In particular, a system for the continuous automatic analysis of dissolved nitrates in the sea is being set up, the first in Europe. A Hewlett-Packard 2116B computer is installed on board to acquire data every 30 seconds. Measurement cruises are carried out in the Venice lagoon and in front of the Po estuary.

In 1973, it was used for seismic surveys in the Pozzuoli area for the study of bradyseism (on behalf of the CNR) and then for structural analysis and velocity studies in the Strait of Messina (on behalf of ANAS).

In 1974, a night storm knocked the ship against the pier and sank, then resting on its side. During the salvage the hull was sheared by the harness and the ship was sold in 1975 to a local maritime salvage company.

The ship 'OGS Explora' was purchased from Prakla-Seismos. During the first Italian geophysical campaign in Antarctica, it was still called "Explora" and flew the German flag. It reached the limits of the Ross Barrier at 78°S. The vessel was registered as an Italian ship in March 1988 and changed its name to OGS Explora. It carried out 11 Antarctic and 3 Arctic campaigns.

The research vessel "Laura Bassi" was purchased from the British Antarctic Survey (bearing the name Ernest Shackleton, previously the Norwegian ship named the Polar Queen).