Latest Scientific drilling Stories

Deep sediments are unparalleled record of biotic changes over past 200,000+ years University of California, Berkeley, scientists are drilling into ancient sediments at the bottom of Northern California's Clear Lake for clues that could help them better predict how today's plants and animals will adapt to climate change and increasing population. The lake sediments are among the world's oldest, containing records of biological change stretching back as far as 500,000 years. The core...

To find answers, oceanographers install observatories beneath remote seafloor Of all the habitable parts of our planet, one ecosystem still remains largely unexplored and unknown to science: the igneous ocean crust. This rocky realm of hard volcanic lava exists beneath ocean sediments that lie at the bottom of much of the world's oceans. While scientists have estimated that microbes living in deep ocean sediments may represent as much as one-third of Earth's total biomass, the...

Samples of rock, sediment from beneath the sea-floor help explain quakes like Japan'sNew samples of rock and sediment from the depths of the eastern Pacific Ocean may help explain the cause of large, destructive earthquakes similar to the Tohoku Earthquake that struck Japan in mid-March.Nearly 1,500 meters (almost one mile) of sediment cores collected from the ocean floor off the coast of Costa Rica reveal detailed records of some two million years of tectonic activity along a seismic plate...

Thirty-eight million years ago, tropical jungles thrived in what are now the cornfields of the American Midwest and furry marsupials wandered temperate forests in what is now the frozen Antarctic.The temperature differences of that era, known as the late Eocene, between the equator and Antarctica were half what they are today.A debate has been ongoing in the scientific community about what changes in our global climate system led to such a major shift from the more tropical, greenhouse...

The Chicxulub crater in Mexico, the site of the asteroid strike that brought the dinosaurs to extinction 65 million years ago, is among the highlights of ocean drilling projects proposed for the next decade, reports BBC News. The Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP) plans to study the crater by drilling about a mile into the sea bed. IODP is also planning expeditions to study earthquakes, ancient climates and a long-term aim to penetrate the Earth's mantle for the first time. IODP...

Ocean drilling expedition off New Zealand helps predict global sea level changesFor eight weeks beginning in November 2009, off the coast of New Zealand, an international team of 34 scientists and 92 support staff and crew on board the scientific drilling vessel JOIDES Resolution (JR) were at work investigating sea-level change in a region called the Canterbury Basin. It proved to be a record-breaking trip for the research team.The JR is one of the primary research vessels of an international...

Water in Earth's critical zone; declining water resources in the U.S. west; "zebra stripes" in rock; dark energy under the sea-floor; undersea volcanic eruptions; Sumatra earthquake zone among topicsSociety stands at a crossroads. With growing problems such as resource depletion, energy sustainability, environmental degradation and climate change, can we protect the health of the planet while achieving widespread economic prosperity?This and other questions will be addressed at the...

The future of scientific ocean drillingClose to 600 scientists from 21 countries met Sept. 23 "“ 25 2009 in Bremen, Germany, to outline major scientific targets for a new and ambitious ocean drilling research program. The scientific community envisions that this program will succeed the current Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP), which ends in 2013. The outcome of the Bremen meeting will result in a new science plan, enabling scientific ocean drilling to take on a central role in...

Scientists return from first ever riser drilling operations in seismogenic zoneThe Deep-sea Drilling Vessel CHIKYU successfully completed riser drilling operations on Aug. 31, for IODP Expedition 319, Stage 2 of the Nankai Trough Seismogenic Zone Experiment (NanTroSEIZE). The CHIKYU is operated by the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC) in partnership with the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program. The expedition began with drilling operations at the Kumano Basin, off...

The Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP), in collaboration with industry partner AGR Drilling Services, has engineered an ultra-deepwater drilling technology for use by IODP drilling vessels in scientific research. Originally developed for shallow-water oil and gas exploration, the "riserless mud recovery" technology (RMRâ„¢) holds great promise for scientists striving to reach the long-held goal of Project Mohole in the 1950s: drilling all the way through ocean crust into...