International Group of Scientists Converge at IODP

10/16/09 - The headquarters of the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP) at Texas A&M University is a hotbed of activity this week and next (Oct. 12 to 23) as 35 scientists from around the world converge here to edit a final science report and take away over 30,000 ocean sediment samples from core drilled from below the seafloor of the equatorial Pacific. The scientists will use these samples to determine changes in the Earth’s climate over the last 50 million years, as well as the history of the Antarctic ice cap.

The report and samples represent the science results from IODP’s first drilling expedition since its research vessel, the JOIDES Resolution, underwent a two-year, $115 million renovation.

Some of those scientists are presenting seminars for Texas A&M faculty and students as well, and IODP is coordinating an interactive video conference on October 20 between sixth grade students at Cypress Grove Intermediate School in College Station and two teachers currently sailing on the JOIDES Resolution.

The scientists here for the five-day editorial meeting are from Germany, Italy, Japan, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the U.S. They will finalize the official science proceedings from Expedition 320/321, the Pacific Equatorial Age Transect (PEAT), which sailed in two legs from March to July of this year. They will be joined by colleagues from China, Korea, Netherlands and Spain for the sampling party.

All of these scientists sailed on either the first or second leg of the PEAT expedition. A&M Oceanography Professor Mitch Lyle was co-chief scientist for the second leg, and Geology Assistant Professor Bridget Wade and Oceanography Ph.D. student Dan Murphy participated in the expedition.

“I don’t know where the term ‘sampling party’ came from,” said IODP staff scientist Kusali Gamage who was on Expedition 321 and is coordinating this event. “It really is a lot of hard work. We take all the core material that was shipped here from the JOIDES and make it available to the scientists based on their sampling requests and the decision of the sample allocation committee which consists of co-chief scientists, staff scientists and the curator.”

According to Gamage, the scientists are divided into two groups that sample in six-hour shifts – from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. and from 2 p.m. to 8 p.m. They work in the Gulf Coast Repository, IODP’s core storage facility that is one of the program’s three permanent archive locations. The other two repositories are in Germany and Japan.

“The Repository really is quite a busy place during the sampling party” she added. “We’ll have 17 scientists working at six different stations for 12 hours each day.”

The scientists make this trip so that they can collect the samples they need to complete their research sooner than would be possible if IODP personnel did all the sampling. They essentially provide the manpower needed to accomplish such a gargantuan task in the shortest amount of time possible.

Samples taken can range in size from a few cubic centimeters to sugar-cube size or even a wedge or larger, depending on what the researcher is studying.

Three of the visiting scientists are giving seminars open to all Texas A&M faculty and students. Hiroshi Nishi gave a seminar in the Department of Geology and Geophysics on Thursday, October 15. Nishi was a co-chief scientist on Expedition 320, the first leg of PEAT, and is a professor in the Department of Natural History Sciences at Hokkaido University in Sapporo, Japan.

On Monday, October 19, Heiko Paelike will present a seminar for the Department of Oceanography’s seminar series on the preliminary results of the PEAT Expedition. It will be at 4 p.m. in Room 112 of the Eller Oceanography and Meteorology Building. Paelike is a professor in the School of Ocean & Earth Science, University of Southampton, U.K.  He was a co-chief scientist on Expedition 320.

Ann Holbourn will present another seminar in the Department of Geology & Geophysics on Thursday, October 22, at 3:45 p.m. in Halbouty Room 101. She is a faculty member at the Institute of Geosciences at Christian-Albrechts University of Kiel, Germany. Holbourn will discuss Miocene high- and low-latitude climate linkages.  She sailed as a micropaleontologist on Expedition 321.

The ship is currently drilling in the Pacific Ocean on Expedition 324, the Shatsky Rise Formation. It sailed from Yokohama, Japan, September 4 and is due back in port November 4. Texas A&M Oceanography Professor Will Sager is co-chief scientist for this expedition. Oceanography graduate student Stella Woodard and former Ph.D. student Masako Tominaga are on the expedition as well.

Approximately 70 sixth grade students at Cypress Grove Intermediate School will get to talk with two teachers and some of the scientists on the ship at 10 a.m. Tuesday, October 20. The video conference will let them experience life onboard a scientific ocean drilling ship.

The Cypress Grove students will talk with teachers Nasseer Idrisi and Yuko Uchio who are participating in this expedition through the Teachers at Sea program coordinated by the Deep Earth Academy, the education arm of IODP.

Teachers at Sea gives teachers the opportunity to learn shipboard science alongside the expedition’s science party and translate their learning experiences for students, families and the general public through blogs, videos, social networking sites, classroom activities and live video conferencing like the one being held at Cypress Grove. Some of the learning tools they create are available on the JOIDES Resolution website at http://joidesresolution.org/.

The video conference event at Cypress Grove is being organized by sixth grade science teacher Jan Fechelm and Geology M.S. student Brad Weymer, who is a graduate assistant in the Gulf Coast Repository at IODP. Assisting Weymer will be Leslie Peart, Education Director of Deep Earth Academy.

To prepare for the event, students are learning about the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program in their science classes. They will also have the opportunity to view slides of nanofossils, which Fechelm prepared a few years ago when she attended the "School of Rock," IODP’s annual summer teacher workshop. 

Texas A&M University has been engaged in scientific ocean drilling since 1985. IODP is based in the College of Geosciences and overseen by A&M, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University, and the Consortium for Ocean Leadership.

Many faculty, staff, and graduate students from the College of Geosciences have participated in IODP expeditions and those of its predecessor, the Ocean Drilling Program. In addition to housing IODP and the Gulf Coast Repository on campus, the university has established the Ocean Drilling and Sustainable Earth Science (ODASES) initiative among IODP and the Colleges of Education, Engineering, and Geosciences. The goal of ODASES is to strengthen the links between ocean drilling research, education, and technology development (http://odases.tamu.edu).