Ocean Research Team Returns Seafloor Observatories Successfully Established

IODP Expedition 301

Astoria, OR – The inaugural voyage of the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP), the largest international scientific research program of its kind, returns to port after a successful 60-day expedition at sea. At the Juan de Fuca Ridge, 200 km off the coast of British Columbia, IODP expedition 301 conducted a challenging series of studies to evaluate how fluid flows within the oceanic crust.

“We know that there is as much water flowing through the ocean crust in a year as comes off all of the continents in rivers. It is a big part of the hydrologic cycle. On land, there are thousands of river monitoring systems that help us to understand how much water is in the rivers, what is the water quality, and what lives in the rivers. We have virtually nothing like this in the seafloor,” remarks Andy Fisher, Co-Chief Scientist for Expedition 301.

Below two miles of water and more than a quarter mile of mud and rock, the team established two new observatories, as deep as 583 meters beneath the seafloor, and replaced one existing observatory. “These borehole observatories will allow us to monitor the flow of water in the crust, trace where the water flows and how quickly, find out which microbes live in the seafloor and how.”

When completed within the next few years, this network of observatories will allow scientists to the view the “groundwater” that flows beneath the ocean floor. “Imagine trying to figure out how the plumbing in your house works by periodically sampling water from the sink. It won’t work – you have to dig into the walls and floors to see the pipes. That’s what we are doing out here – digging into the floor to see the “pipes” through which the water flows,” explains Fisher.

Expedition 301 also sampled sediments, basalt, fluids, and microbial samples; collected wireline logs in the deepest borehole; and conducted hydrogeologic tests in two holes. Shorebased studies will help explain where microbiological communities live in the crust, and how these communities cycle carbon, alter rocks, and are influenced by fluid flow paths.

IODP is an international partnership of scientists and research institutions organized to explore the history and structure of the Earth. The JOI Alliance, JOI’s partnership with Texas A&M University and Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University, manages activities associated with the U.S. Implementing Organization and the riserless vessel for the program. Visit IODP at http://www.iodp-usio.org.

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