Ready to Drill
Filed under: Discovery,News & Resources,Scientific Ocean Drilling
A complete overhaul of the scientific drilling vessel JOIDES Resolution (JR) “has created a new and transformative science environment,” says the ship’s head of scientific operations, geochemist Mitchell Malone of Texas A&M University in College Station.
(From ScienceMag.org) — The $130 million, 3-year refurbishment, completed earlier this year in Singapore, increased lab space by 34%, Malone says. All lab equipment has been renovated or replaced.
Living quarters for the scientific crew of 60 are more comfortable, too. On the old JR, researchers stayed in four-bunk cabins, with eight people sharing a bathroom. Now there are
two beds to a room, and baths have been doubled. Roommates are put on staggered 12-hour shifts so they can have the room to themselves on off hours.
The JR is the U.S. National Science Foundation–funded contribution to the 16-country Integrated Ocean Drilling Program, which probes the sea floor to study the deep
biosphere, environmental change, and Earth’s geodynamics. The ship called at Yokohama in early September to change crews and resupply.
It is now drilling into rock at the Shatsky Rise, a Pacific plateau 1500 km east of Japan, seeking clues to the formation of such plateaus.
