Sponsors
 National Science FoundationThe National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent federal agency created by Congress in 1950 “to promote the progress of science; to advance the national health, prosperity, and welfare; to secure the national defense…” With an annual budget of about $5.5 billion, NSF is the funding source for approximately 20 percent of all federally supported basic research conducted by America’s colleges and universities. In many fields such as mathematics, computer science and the social sciences, NSF is the major source of federal backing. |
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The Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP) is an international research program that explores the history and structure of the earth as recorded in seafloor sediments and rocks. IODP builds upon the earlier successes of the Deep Sea Drilling Project (DSDP) and the Ocean Drilling Program (ODP), which revolutionized our view of Earth history and global processes through ocean basin exploration. IODP represents the latest generation of these highly successful scientific ocean-drilling initiatives and seeks to greatly expand the reach of these previous programs by forming a collaborative union between the United States, Japan, and the European Union, each of whom will be responsible for providing drilling platforms appropriate for achieving the scientific objectives outlined in the IODP Initial Science Plan. The Consortium for Ocean Leadership and its partners, the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University (LDEO) and Texas A&M University (TAMU), have been selected by NSF to be the IODP United States Implementing Organization (IODP-USIO) for the U.S. riserless vessel and related activities. The objectives of the USIO are to provide leadership regarding the U.S. interests in IODP as the challenges and demands of a multiplatform drilling program present themselves. |
