Changes Applied to FY09, FY10 Expedition Schedules
Due to changing drilling vessel schedules and fiscal constraints, revised plans have been applied to the IODP expedition schedule for FY09 and FY10:
Two Pacific Equatorial Age Transect (USIO) expeditions comprise the first scientific operations aboard the newly refurbished JOIDES Resolution, followed by Bering Sea and Shatsky Rise late in FY09 (the latter expedition extends into FY10).
Chikyu will operate for ~150 days in the NanTroSEIZE region in FY09. Operations for two currently scheduled NanTroSEIZE expeditions (CDEX) are slated to start in May 2009.
IODP is accepting applications from prospective scientific staff members for the Shatsky Rise Oceanic Plateau Formation Expedition scheduled for Sept.–Nov. 2009. Based on Proposal 654-Full2, this expedition will investigate the age, sources, and evolution of Shatsky Rise in the northwest Pacific Ocean and test the plume-head versus tectonic plate hypotheses of ocean plateau formation. Scientists interested in participating should apply to their respective Program Member Offices by Jan. 9, 2009.
An ECORD science operations team recently visited Australia to advance the Great Barrier Reef Environmental Changes Expedition (GBREC), scheduled for the latter part of 2009. The ESO team visited the Australian National University (ANU) in Canberra, where they met Neville Exon, the new head of the IODP Program Member Office for the Australia/New Zealand Consortium (ANZIC), a consortium currently completing a Memorandum of Understanding with IODP Lead Agencies. The ESO team was comprised of Science Manager Dan Evans, Operations Manager Dave Smith, Outreach Manager Alan Stevenson, and Drilling Consultant Alister Skinner. A presentation about IODP and the science plan to investigate the Great Barrier Reef was provided to ANU staff, along with geologists from Geoscience Australia.Traveling on to the University of Sydney, the ESO team met up with Jody Webster, a GBREC co-chief scientist, before heading north to Townsville. There, the group met with representatives of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority (GBRMPA) to discuss expedition plans, an operational update, the project science, and benefits that will accrue to management of the reef through scientific ocean drilling.
“Explaining the science that will emerge from IODP drilling to stakeholders in the region is primary to GBREC’s success,” says Dan Evans. “ESO intends to work closely with GBRMPA in developing the expedition’s communications plan,” adds Alan Stevenson. GBRMPA meeting participants represented interests in environmental impact management, a knowledge management group, a program delivery group, communications and education, ports and shipping, and fisheries. Upon their return to the UK, the ESO team stopped in Singapore, where the JOIDES Resolution is undergoing refurbishment and renewal. Jay Miller, acting SODV manager and staff scientist, treated the ESO team to a tour of the ship as work was underway.
The core redistribution plan, recommended by the IODP Science Advisory Structure (SAS) and begun in Oct. 2006, is now completed. The plan rolled out a three-year strategy designed to archive nearly 190,000 meters of DSDP/ODP/IODP core geographically among the Kochi Core Center (KCC), the Gulf Coast Repository (GCR), and the Bremen Core Repository (BCR). In addition to consolidating cores on a regional basis for easier sampling, the redistribution project saves IODP an estimated $350,000 per year, by permanently closing the East Coast Repository (ECR) and West Coast Repository (WCR). Over the course of the project:
ECR prepared, packed, and shipped 74,731 meters of core to BCR, KCR and GCR. Following these operations, ECR closed.
BCR prepared, packed, and shipped 6,137 meters of core to GCR and received and racked 61,404 meters of core from ECR.
WCR prepared, packed and shipped 49,967 meters of core to KCC and GCR. Following this operation, WCR closed.
KCC received and racked 83,820 meters of core from WCR, GCR, and ECR.
GCR packed and shipped 58,450 meters of core to KCC and also received and racked 44,061 meters of core from BCR, WCR, and ECR.
IODP-MI would like to congratulate the curators at KCC, GCR, BCR, WCR and ECR for their excellent work and their dedication to effectively integrating the archived samples. Thanks in particular go to: John Firth, Ursula Roehl, Lallan Gupta, Gar Esmay, Phil Rumford, Steven Prinz, Walter Hale, Alex Weilbers and the many other workers who contributed to the success of this project.
MARUM Director Gerold Wefer (right) shows the Bremen Core Repository to members of the German government in October.
IODP-MI Vice President Hans Christian Larsen lends a hand in redistributing cored samples to KCC.
ECORD’s leadership rotation has generated new ECORD Council chairs: Chris Franklin of the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), UK, has been named Council chair; Severino Falcon-Morales of Spain’s Ministry of Science and Innovation (MICINN), and Fernando Barriga of Portugal’s Foundation for Science and Technology (FST) are vice chairs. The chairs serve from Oct. 1, 2008 until March 31, 2009.
Forty-three students and five IODP scientists stayed on board the Chikyu for two nights at Sasebo Bay as part of an IODP “Expedition School,” an education initiative designed to present actual IODP shipboard research as visual core description, paleontology, petrology and geochemistry analyses in Chikyu laboratories. The school was named Virtual IODP Expedition 999, and students performed as “real” expedition scientists. See photos of students enjoying their studies and onboard research life.
The U.S. Science Advisory Committee (USAC) has named Brad Clement of Florida International University as the new chair. Brad served as a USAC member for the past two years and has a long history of involvement in scientific ocean drilling. He sailed on four expeditions, worked as an ODP staff scientist, and served on the JOIDES Ocean History Panel. He also worked as an ODP associate program director at NSF. Contact Brad by e-mail at
. Brad succeeds Christina Ravelo of University of California, Santa Cruz. Thanks to Christina who ably led USAC during her term.
Repair work on the damaged azimuth thruster gears of the deep-sea drilling vessel Chikyu began in October at the Sasebo Shipyard in Japan. The Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC) expects all repairs to be completed and shakedown operations conducted by May 2009, when the Chikyu will resume NanTroSEIZE drilling operations with Expedition 319, off the coast of Japan’s Kii Peninsula. The thruster gears form part of the ship’s dynamic positioning system (DPS), which is used to maintain position and stability during drilling operations. Damage was found during regular maintenance inspections conducted earlier this year.
The 2008 ECORD Summer School, held from Sept. 1-12, presented PhD students and post docs with lectures, interactive discussions, and applied shipboard methodologies focused on the Deep Subseafloor Biosphere. The two-week intensive program was cosponsored by the Center for Marine Environmental Sciences (MARUM) with the Graduate School GLOMAR and IODP Bremen Core Repository (BCR). Twenty-eight students from Europe and the United States participated, taking advantage of the Bremen Core Repository’s facilities and labs, and completing a practicum on shipboard techniques and core logging.
Participants from eight countries attended ECORD Summer School to focus on the Deep Subseafloor Biosphere.
The IODP Town Hall Meeting is set for Tuesday, Dec. 16. A “happy hour” will kick things off at 5:30 p.m. at the InterContinental San Francisco, 888 Howard Street, a short walk from the Moscone Center. At 6:30 p.m., the meeting will begin, in a new format. Panelists from the funding agencies and IOs will be introduced and ready to take your questions. The entire hour will be devoted to audience-panelist interaction. Your questions will define the scope of the evening. Begin formulating your questions online at the Town Hall Meeting Forum—it’s a place to get discussion going, collaborate with your peers, and give the panelists a preview of how to prepare for the evening. Questions can be submitted in advance of the Town Hall Meeting online for those who prefer to retain anonymity.
Look for IODP booth # 2213 at the American Geophysical Union (AGU) Fall Meeting Expo in San Francisco from Dec. 15-19. The IODP booth is located next to Nature Publishing Group and across from the Consortium for Ocean Leadership (booth #2214). Volunteers who wish to work in the booth may sign up online. The Fall Meeting is expected to draw a crowd of over 15,000 geophysicists from all around the world. Many scientific sessions will focus on scientific ocean drilling; to see a listing, click here. Or do your own AGU session searches
On Tuesday, Dec. 16, French author Christine Laverne will be at the IODP booth from 2-4 pm signing copies of her new book, Drill Me a Painting. The book is Christine’s personal memoir of her days at sea as a science party member on DSDP, ODP, and IODP expeditions; it contains 118 original watercolors. A small quantity of the book was produced as a special IODP limited edition in coordination with Atlantica Publishing, Schlumberger, and ECORD. Christine also has agreed to sign books at the Town Hall Meeting from 5:30 – 6:30 pm. Copies of the book will be complimentary, on a first-come, first-served basis, at the IODP booth (Get your book there and bring it to the Town Hall Meeting for signature—a small quanatity will be available onsite at the Town Hall). More detail about the book is available at the Town Hall Meeting Forum.
The recently published Cumulative Index to the Proceedings of the Ocean Drilling Program (ODP), renders 22+ years of scientific material from a broad range of marine geoscience subdisciplines into a comprehensive reference tool. This comprehensive index consolidates entries from all ODP Proceedings into four indexes: subject, taxonomic, geographic/site, and author. The Index contains 2,500 pages and covers the18-year span of ODP (1985–2003), a time of extensive achievement in marine geosciences. There are 119 Initial Reports volumes averaging 970 pages each, and 112 Scientific Results volumes, averaging 540 pages each.
The Sant Ocean Hall, a long awaited Smithsonian gallery devoted to ocean science and ocean literacy opened to the public on Sept. 27. An opening event on Oct. 3 provided the ocean drilling community and their guests a first peek inside this 30-year exhibition at the National Museum of Natural History, and the IODP/ODP/DSDP content that anchors one of the galleries in the exhibition hall. See photos of the IODP gallery opening and Sant Ocean Hall on an interactive page, where you can identify guests.
Bookmark these URLs. Visit often to get the latest updates on events and resources: INVEST—Learn more about this international community meeting, which will focus on defining the scientific research goals of the second phase of the IODP, expected to begin late in 2013. http://www.marum.de/iodp-invest.html ECORD—Find information about new ECORD publications, core replicas available for loan and the latest ECORD newsletter. http://www.ecord.org/pi/promo.html and http://www.ecord.org/pub/publications.html THM Forum—Visit this spot for discussion about the future of scientific ocean drilling prior to the Town Hall Meeting in December, San Francisco.http://townhall08.iodp.org/ Contribute and be heard! You can also submit a question for the panel in advance of the meeting, anonymously or not. Ocean Leadership News Blog—The Ocean Leadership president blogs on a weekly basis. Share Bob Gagosian’s perspective here: http://www.oceanleadership.org/about/from_the_presidents_office Nominations for New (USA) Administration Leadership Positions—Nominate individualsfor key political appointments in the U.S. government at http://oceanleadership.org/policy/nominate-transition. Your nominee must be willing and eligible to serve, and provide required information. Nominations will be held in confidence and provided to the Obama-Biden transition team with permission of the nominee. Understanding Science— A new education site funded by NSF, produced by University of California at Berkeley, in collaboration with a diverse group of scientists and teachers, has launched as a beta test site. Explore www.understandingscience.org and provide feedback to the site managers. Official launch expected in January.
May 23-27 —Joint Assembly of the American Geophysical Union and Canadian geoscience associations, including Geological Association of Canada, Mineralogical Association of Canada, Canadian Geophysical Union, and International Association of Hydrogeologists-Canadian National Chapter. Toronto, Canada.
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IODP E-News is a bimonthly publication of Integrated Ocean Drilling Program Management International (IODP-MI). It is produced and distributed by IODP-MI for the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program under the sponsorship of the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF), the Ministry of Culture, Education, Sports, Science and Technology of Japan, and other participating countries. Its content is based upon research supported under NSF Contract OCE-0432224.
