Overview

The National Science Foundation's (NSF) investments in state-of-the art tools for research and education are intended to enable discovery at the frontiers of science and engineering and concurrently enhance the productivity, effectiveness, and continual renewal of the science and engineering workforce. A subset of the NSF investment in tools is funded through the Major Research Equipment and Facilities Construction (MREFC) Account. The Scientific Ocean Drilling Vessel (SODV), which is funded by the NSF through funds in MREFC, will serve as the state-of-the-art, riserless drilling research platform for the science community as well as the United States' contribution to support the scientific mission of the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP), an international program of basic research in the marine geosciences, supported by NSF and numerous international partners. IODP will build upon the successes of Ocean Drilling Program (ODP) by enhancing the capabilities of scientific ocean drilling through international partnerships using multiple drilling platforms.

Background

Conceptual Design Committee (CDC) report provides a first-order assessment of the U.S. scientific community's requirements for a riserless SODV. It recommends several improvements that include developing new coring tools, and improving core recovery, quality, and continuity of stratigraphic sections recovered from all environments. Based on the recommendations presented in the CDC report, the U.S. Implementing Organization (USIO) has taken steps to define specifically the requirements and enhanced capabilities to be incorporated into the design of the U.S. SODV. CDC Report 2000 (pdf 421 KB) CDC Questionnaire 2000 (pdf 72 KB) International responses received to CDC Questionnaire 2001 (pdf 320 KB)

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