Scientists Set Course for Next Decade of Scientific Ocean Drilling
Amsterdam, The Netherlands – Global climate change, earthquakes, and tsunami
generation are some of the most pressing geoscientific challenges of the 21st century.
Scientific ocean drilling is a key tool to investigate these phenomena and
fundamental questions in Earth and life sciences. At a meeting today at the Royal
Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, senior representatives of funding
agencies from 24 nations will adopt a road map for the next decade of scientific
ocean drilling research. A media conference will be held at 4:00 PM local time and
The research plan, Illuminating Earth’s Past, Present, and Future, outlines an ambitious
geoscience initiative known as the International Ocean Discovery Program. Planned to
begin in 2013, it will build on the scientific and technical successes of previous ocean
drilling research and aims to address the prospect of future climate change from the
perspective of the Earth’s past, the mechanisms and occurrence of large earthquakes and
tsunamis, the structure of the Earth’s interior, and the nature of life deep below the
“This research plan was written by a team of some of the world’s best geoscientists with
contributions from more than 600 scientists,” explains Hans Christian Larsen, Vice
President of IODP-Management International Inc. (IODP-MI), the program’s central
coordinating agency based in Tokyo. “It truly reflects the priorities of the global
academic community in Earth sciences research.”
Variations in Earth’s climate and its oceans, evolution of the marine biosphere, and the
composition of the Earth’s mantle are preserved in rocks and sediment at and below the
ocean floor. By applying increasingly sophisticated research methods, scientists can tune
into these signals from Earth’s past to learn about dramatic shifts in the location of
continents, extreme volcanism, fluctuations in atmospheric gases, and the formation of
the ocean floor and island arcs.
Illuminating Earth’s Past, Present, and Future focuses on four research themes: using
records of past climate and ocean change to inform the future; exploring deep life,
biodiversity, and environmental forcing of ecosystems; understanding deep Earth
processes and how they impact Earth’s surface; and investigating geological processes
and hazards that occur on human time scales.
“The new program will expand research frontiers by targeting Earth’s mantle six
kilometers below the seafloor, exploring life in extreme environments, and revealing
clues to Earth’s climate history from beneath the ice-covered Arctic Ocean,” says
Maureen Raymo, Research Professor at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia
University, and Chair of the executive committee that guides scientific ocean drilling.
Fumio Inagaki, Senior Researcher at the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and
Technology adds, “exploring life processes deep below the seafloor at the very edge of
habitability may yield results ranging from industrial applications to a better
understanding of life in the universe.”
Key to implementing the research plan is state-of-the-art infrastructure currently in use by
the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program. Worth approximately one billion USD, these
facilities include the US-supplied JOIDES Resolution drilling vessel; the Japanese
drilling vessel CHIKYU; and global core repositories and laboratories.
The US and Japan, in partnership with 16 European countries and Canada (ECORD), will
play a leading role in the new program. ECORD will provide access to drilling platforms
for the Arctic or other environments requiring highly specialized platforms. Australia,
India, New Zealand, the People’s Republic of China, and the Republic of Korea will
participate as program members and more nations may join in 2012. Funding
commitments of the 24-nation ocean drilling research consortium are expected by mid-
2012.
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A press conference starting at 4 PM local time on Thursday, 16 June 2011 can be followed live
4 PM local time on Wednesday, 15 June until Thursday 16 June 5 PM local time, and will be
answered during the conference as time allows. More information including copy of the new
About IODP
The current scientific ocean drilling program, the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP), is an
international research program dedicated to advancing scientific understanding of the Earth
through drilling, coring, and monitoring the subseafloor. The JOIDES Resolution is a scientific
research vessel managed by the US Implementing Organization of IODP (USIO). CHIKYU is a
drilling vessel operated by JAMSTEC/CDEX (Japan), and mission-specific platforms are supplied
by ECORD (the European Consortium for Ocean Research Drilling). IODP is supported by two
lead agencies: the US National Science Foundation (NSF) and Japan's Ministry of Education,
Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT). Additional program support comes from
ECORD, the Australian-New Zealand IODP Consortium (ANZIC), India’s Ministry of Earth
Sciences, the People's Republic of China (Ministry of Science and Technology), and the Korea
Institute of Geoscience and Mineral Resources.
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Contacts:
Miyuki Otomo Dick van der Wateren
IODP Management International, Inc. (IODP-MI) Landforms Science and Media
Tokyo, Japan Amsterdam, the Netherlands
motomo [at] iodp [dot] org wateren [at] landforms [dot] org
+81-3-6701-3188 +31-6-5460-4741
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NSP Press Release 
