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UK IODP

Aims and objectives

The Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP), which began in 2004, builds upon the legacies of the early ocean drilling voyages, including the Deep Sea Drilling Project (1968-1983) and the Ocean Drilling Program (1983-2003). It offers a new and exciting research programme. Its researchers are investigating the Earth's fundamental processes and exploring previously inaccessible or poorly understood areas, such as the Arctic.

Japan has contributed a riser vessel to the programme that can drill deep into continental margins (where potential oil and gas deposits inhibited previous academic drilling) and into regions with thick sediment sections, fault zones, unstable formations or chert layers. The United States has provided a non-riser ship.

The programme is also employing vessels for specific tasks, eg drilling in shallow water or ice-covered regions. With these multiple platforms scientists, can research more sites globally with better equipment, and undertake multidisciplinary, integrated research programmes.

IODP is helping the research community to:

• improve the accuracy and precision of global change models that help us understand natural climate variability and human influences on climate change

• examine ocean communities and investigate the deep biosphere and evolution

• directly investigate earthquake mechanisms by drilling into the seismogenic zone and establishing seafloor observatories (the observatories will also monitor changes in chemistry and biology on and below the ocean floor, for example gas hydrate formations)

• explore the Earth's interior by sampling deep sediment sequences, ocean crust, and, possibly for the first time, unaltered material from the Earth's mantle

• explore in previously inaccessible areas

• accelerate research with new technologies

• enhance international scientific co-operation