Scientific ocean drilling addresses fundamental questions about Earth’s history, processes, and structure by collecting samples of sediments, rocks, biota, and fluids from beneath the seafloor, often at great depths, and deploying state-of-the-art downhole measurement devices and long-term borehole observatories.

Recent Highlights

• Wilkes Land Cores Tell the Story of a Planet in Flux (November 2013)
• IODP Data Helps Confirm Existence of the Largest Single Volcano on Earth (August 2013)
• Development of Antarctic Ice Sheet Triggered a Unique Marine Ecosystem (April 2013)
• Scientific Drilling Probes the Pacific Ring of Fire (November 2012)
• 55 Million Years of the Carbon Cycle and Climate History (August 2012)
• Today’s Ocean Acidification Rate May Be Unprecedented (March 2012)
• Hydration of Young Oceanic Crust (December 2011)
• In Search of Microbes from the Deep Subsurface Biosphere (April 2011)
• Documenting and Forecasting Sea Level Change (November 2010)
• Expedition News