Overview
- What is the International Ocean Discovery Program ?
- Why do we need scientific ocean drilling?
- The research objectives in the new IODP
- The drilling tools
- Financial structure of IODP
- Program organization
What is the International Ocean Discovery Program ?
The International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP) is a ten-year global project to explore the areas beneath the sea floor by deep drilling. It started in October 2013 and builds on preceding scientific deep sea drilling programs, namely the Deep Sea Drilling Project (DSDP, 1968 - 1983), the Ocean Drilling Program (ODP, 1983 - 2003) and the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP, 2003 - 2013). These drilling programs enabled the exploration of previously inaccessible areas of the sea-floor as well as research on processes controlling the evolution of our planet that were poorly understood so far. The association of currently 23 countries in the IODP allows research at the highest scientific and technological levels.
The scientific objectives of the current drilling program are summarized in the "Science Plan "Illuminating Earth‘s Past Present and Future". This plan is based on achievements of the preceding programs, whilst at the same time bringing to the fore new, pioneering questions, methods and models. Although still clearly committed to basic research, IODP increasingly addresses societally-relevant topics (e.g. questions related to climate change, geological hazards and raw materials). Cooperations with other geoscientific programs, first of all the International Continental Scientific Drilling Program (ICDP), are to be significantly strengthened.
Why do we need scientific ocean drilling?
About over two thirds of Earth‘s surface is covered by water. Beneath the ocean, on the sea-floor and below, major geological processes take place that shape the dynamic image of our planet:
- The continuous formation of crust and its subduction back into Earth's mantle.
- Ninety percent of all earthquakes release their energy beneath the oceans; occasionally triggering severe tsunamis.
Over millions of years, remains of marine life and terrestrial particles were transported into the sea by wind and rivers, and have been deposited on the sea-floor. Amongst other things, these sediments deliver:
- Information on the evolution of climate, marine life and environmental conditions.
- Microbial life can be found within the ocean floor down to great depths and contributes a barely explored but significant proportion of the Earth's total biomass.
- The ocean floor also contains a largely unexplored potential of mineral and energy resources.
50 years of scientific ocean drilling programs recovered thousands of drill cores and therefore contributed significantly to the understanding of interactions between the Earth's crust and mantle, the ocean, ice caps, the atmosphere, the Earth's magnetic field, planetary forcing, and the biosphere. However, much of this has not been understood in depth yet. The International Ocean Discovery Program helps investigating these unresolved issues. Knowledge obtained from ocean drilling and borehole observatories is essential for a better understanding of these interactions, as well as for a sustainable use of the Earth’s resources and the protection of the marine environment.
The research objectives in the new IODP
Although the oceans have been intensively explored for more than 50 years within the ocean drilling programs’ frameworks, many questions still remain unanswered. Many of these are of high societal and economic relevance. A growing global population, climate change, the increasing demand for raw materials and geological hazards such as earthquakes and tsunamis, require a better understanding of the system “Earth”. The International Ocean Discovery Program contributes to this understanding.
The Science plan for IODP defines four research priorities, which in turn are subdivided into several scientific "challenges":
- "Climate and Ocean Change": One of the most important scientific challenges is to better understand rates and causes of global climate change and its consequences. Studying paleoclimate archives from the deep-sea will allow better constraining past climate change including the sensitivity of ice sheets and sea-level. This in turn can help to reduce uncertainties in predicting future climates.
- "Biosphere Frontiers": This theme addresses the biosphere below the sea-floor, specifically to understand the global importance of microbial communities and its participation in the global carbon cycle, but also the physical and chemical limits for reproduction and dispersal. Another major challenge in this theme is the study of the sensitivity of marine ecosystems and biodiversity to environmental change.
- "Earth Connections": Within this theme geochemical exchange processes between the subsurface, specifically the upper mantle, and the exogenic system are addressed. These processes include the interaction of the Earth surface and subduction zones as well as oceanic crust production and alteration.
- "Earth in Motion": This theme aims at short-term geodynamic processes that are of direct societal relevance like seismogenic zones, landslides and tsunamis. In addition, this theme also facilitates studies of sub-seafloor carbon sequestration and the installation of sub- seafloor observatories.
The drilling tools
Drill rods in use on the JOIDES RESOLUTION
Source: BGR
State-of-the-art drilling, sampling and observatory technologies are employed when drilling with the various IODP drilling platforms. Two own drilling vessels are available, the JOIDES Resolution and the Chikyu. In addition, so-called Mission Specific Platforms (MSPs) are chartered and deployed in areas where the other drilling vessels cannot operate (e.g. shallow shelf seas, ice-covered seas). Within IODP it is planned that the JOIDES Resolution will operate 8 months per year and the Japanese drilling vessel Chikyu 6 months per year. One MSP expedition per year is planned. MSPs are financed by ECORD.
Two drilling vessels, MSPs and several state-of-the-art land-based facilities, such as core repositories and laboratories, will provide researchers with the best possible working environment for scientific and technical challenges.
Financial structure of IODP
The International Ocean Discovery Program is a consortium of three financially independent partners with additional financial contributions from five partner agencies.
The three main partners and platform providers are:
- U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF)
- Japan´s Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT)
- European Consortium for Ocean Research Drilling (ECORD)
NSF, MEXT and ECORD each provide one of the three drilling platforms (JOIDES Resolution, Chikyu, MSPs). Other partner organizations and member countries contribute to the costs of the platforms or individual expeditions (so-called in-kind contributions) and can thereby participate in important decisions.
Program organization
The IODP Forum is a venue for exchanging ideas and views on the scientific progress of the International Ocean Discovery Program. The Forum is the custodian of the IODP Science Plan and provides advice to the IODP Facility Boards on Platform Provider activity. IODP Forum meets annually and membership is open to all countries, consortia, or entities that provide funds to IODP platform operations.
IODP is based on proposals to use the program's drilling platforms for hypothesis-driven science in line with the program's. Proposals frequently involve collaborations between international, interdisciplinary researchers. Because proposals will not result in a financial arrangement (contract) with the proponent's institution, they are submitted by the individual investigator and not through the investigator's institution.
The Science Evaluation Panel (SEP) is an advisory body composed of volunteering experts from IODP member countries. SEP primarily reviews proposals to use the IODP drilling platforms but can also advise on other scientific topics. Successful proposal will be forwarded to the (EPSP); there a site-by-site review of proposed or scheduled IODP expeditions is carried out from the point of view of safety and environmental protection.
Scheduling of expeditions will be the task of the "Facility Boards" of the respective platform operators (JR Facility Board, ECORD Facility Board, Chikyu IODP Board).
Further information on the structure of the IODP can be found here.
A list of the committee members can be found here.