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What is the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP)?

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IODP (http://www.iodp.org) aims to solve global scientific problems by taking continuous core at a great variety of sites in the world's oceans. It is the world's largest multinational geoscience program and includes almost all OECD countries. IODP carries out deep scientific coring in all the world's oceans using a variety of platforms, and provides 'ground truthing' of scientific theories that are often based largely on remote sensing techniques. New technologies and concepts in geoscience are continuously being developed through IODP. Its key research areas are described in IODP's 'Initial Science Plan' (http://www.iodp.org/isp) are:

• Deep biosphere and ocean floor
• Environmental changes, processes and effects
• Solid earth cycles and geodynamics

The primary tools are Japanese (Chikyu) and American (JOIDES Resolution) coring vessels that are dynamically positioned. Chikyu can drill in water up to 2500 deep, up to 8000 m below the sea floor, and in areas of overpressured sediments or where there is a risk of striking hydrocarbons. JOIDES Resolution can drill in water up to 7000 deep and up to 2000 m below the sea floor, but not in areas of overpressured sediments and where there is a risk of striking hydrocarbons. European Union funds charter coring platforms to drill in locations or for purposes for which the primary vessels are not suitable. Unsuitable locations include the Arctic Ocean, where ice breaking capability is needed, and in water depths of less than 100 metres, for which floating vessels are not suitable. Cores from the various expeditions are studied by scientists around the world and stored in specialised core repositories for long-term use.

 

 

Why is IODP important to Australia and New Zealand?

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Australia and New Zealand have vast marine jurisdictions and, through the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf, have extended or will extend their seabed jurisdictions well beyond the 200-nautical-mile limit of their already very large Exclusive Economic Zones. Having claimed this marine jurisdiction, they will logically need to increase marine research efforts there by deploying a full range of scientific tools. The coring capabilities of IODP provide important tools, including some capable of sampling sub-bottom environments where key biogeochemical transformations occur, such as the formation of methane hydrates..

Australian and New Zealand scientists will gain through shipboard and post-cruise participation in cutting edge science, by building partnerships with overseas scientists, by having research proponents and co-chief scientists who can steer programs and outputs, and by early access to key samples and data. They will also have the opportunity of science training for post-doctoral and doctoral students in marine science that could not be obtained in any other way. Our region is the best in which to address various global science problems, and some of them cannot be addressed elsewhere. Being a member of IODP will help us maintain our leadership in Southern Hemisphere marine geoscience research.

Access to existing cores from the world's oceans can be obtained for the Deep Sea Drilling Project (early predecessor of IODP) through http://www.deepseadrilling.org/ the Ocean Drilling Program (recent predecessor of IODP) through http://www.odplegacy.org/ and for IODP through its core repositories at http://iodp.tamu.edu/curation/repositories.html