Expeditions to Drill Pacific, Artic and Atlantic sites

• Main Author: Coffin, MF
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Transactions American Geophysical Union 2004
• Subjects: Earth Sciences; Geology; Marine Geoscience; Arctic; Pacific
• Online Access: http://ecite.utas.edu.au/75248

The Integrated Ocean Drilling Program,aninternational collaboration of Earth,ocean,and life scientists,commenced on 1 October2003 (IODP;www.iodp.org).Building on thesuccesses of previous scientific ocean drillingprograms,the IODP offers scientists worldwideunprecedented opportunities to address avast array of scientific problems in all subma-rine settings.The scientific advisory structureof the proposal-driven IODP recently plannedthe inaugural drilling expeditions,targetingcritical scientific problems in the easternPacific,central Arctic,and north AtlanticOceans in 2004 and 2005 (Figure 1,Table 1).Co-led by Japan and the United States,withinitial,significant contributions from the Euro-pean Consortium for Ocean Research Drilling(ECORD),the IODP is guided by an initial science plan,Earth,Oceans,and Life(www.iodp.org/isp.html),developed with broad input fromthe international geoscientific community.Forthe first time,scientists will have permanentriser and non-riser drilling vessels and mission-specific capabilities such as drilling barges,and jack-up rigs for shallow water and Arcticdrilling at their disposal.Japan is providing thenew riser vessel,Chikyu,to the IODP beginningin 2006;the United States is supplying the non-riser drilling vessel,currently JOIDES Resolution,beginning in 2004;and the ECORD is furnishingmission-specific platforms,also beginning in 2004