Excerpt from the 2005 proposal
The proposed ‘Deep Earth Sampling’ (DES) Working Group is an interdisciplinary group comprising petrologists, structural geologists, petrophysicists, geochemists and geophysicists. It aims to plan a global strategy, oversee monitor and guide the passed or ongoing drilling (IODP, ICDP) projects, and incite/support/develop new projects. It may be viewed as a logical follow-up to the work achieved by the ODP "Architecture of the Oceanic Lithosphere" PPG (see report in the DES working group page at www.interridge.org). In summary, our mandate is, quoting the Interridge Steering Committee, "to determine where to drill with regard to mid-oceanic ridges, and then come out with proposals that will feed in to other initiatives such as IODP".
There are currently (November 2004) 126 active pre-proposals and proposals residing in the IODP SAS (http://www.iodp-mi-sapporo.org/active.html). 18 of these (including 2 Atlantic rifted margins projects) have objectives relevant to the InterRidge Science Plan (see appendix 1). Most of these projects were initiated during the end of the ODP, and all of them are thought as conventional, non-riser operations. Design of new integrated, multi-platform projects, as outlined in the Science Plan for Mission Specific Platforms (http://www.bgr.de/ecord/index.html) for example, should be encouraged by the DES Working Group.
More specifically, the working group should focus on the following items (see
InterRidge Science Plan for more details).
1. Drilling of Active Hydrothermal Systems
2. Zero-age Ocean Crust and Axial Mantle
3. The Deep Biosphere
4. Drilling in Ophiolites
5. An International Crustal Penetration Drilling Project
Drilling the whole ocean crust has been an objective of the marine geoscience community since the late 1950's. This objective started with the Mohole project (Phase 1 drilled in 1961), and was followed in 1968 by DSDP/ODP. To date, the deepest hole in
the ocean crust is ODP Hole 504B, at the depth of 2111m. Achieving a complete coring
of the oceanic crust remains one of the priority objectives in the IODP initial science plan (http://www.iodp.org/downloads/IODP_Init_Sci_Plan.pdf) with the 21st century Mohole initiative.
Download the full proposal below -
| Anhang | Größe |
|---|---|
| DES_Prop_05.pdf | 163.38 KB |
