Chapter 3. Where It All Began – Scientific Ocean Drilling
Have you ever heard of Project Mohole? If you are younger than a certain age that name probably rings no bells in your memory. I first heard of it in my Weekly Reader, the nationally distributed newspaper for elementary school kids. (I recall also first finding out about Fidel Castro and Sputnik that way.) Well, Mohole was not the actual start, that distinction more properly goes to the International Geophysical Year, proclaimed by 67 countries as a mutual earth science research initiative for 1957 and 1958. The Cold War had reached a lull with the death of Joseph Stalin, prosperity and peace reigned in most parts of the world, computer science was emerging in a big way, the space race had begun with the launches of the first Sputnik (USSR) and Explorer (USA) satellites and many eminent science voices in the world decided the time was ripe to expand our knowledge of our planet using new technologies.
A lot was accomplished during the IGY but it ended quickly and only stimulated the appetite of earth scientists to take even grander steps. The American Miscellaneous Society (AMSOC), an informal group of scientists, conceived the Mohole Project and successfully lobbied the National Science Foundation for funding. The plan was to drill through the earth’s crust and sample the upper mantle, something never even remotely conceived possible before. The earth’s crust varies in thickness around the world but the boundary between crust and mantle is always identifiable in seismic soundings and known as the Mohorovicic Discontinuity, or Moho. Drilling to the Moho under a continent was far too deep to contemplate but the crust is thinnest under the ocean basins where the highest reaches of the mantle were, it was believed in 1958, to be within reach of the improved drilling technologies of the day. And of the total drillstring length, the first three-quarters would be easy -- through seawater.
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| Project Mohole drilling vessel, CUSS-I |
Project Mohole began operations in 1961 and drew a lot of attention, including even an in-person LIFE magazine article by John Steinbeck , who managed to tag along on the first drilling efforts offshore Mexico in the Pacific Ocean. Deepwater drilling was accomplished from a converted barge with a drilling rig, called CUSS-1, which has a charming history of its own. The successes and failures of Mohole are stuff of legends but they never managed to reach the mantle before running out of funding and patience from the NSF administrators. In fact a huge amount of offshore drilling technology was first developed under the auspices of Mohole, where they had to invent a great deal from scratch: high strength drill pipe, dynamic positioning and heave compensation, to name just a few breakthrough technologies. The project was abandoned in 1966 with only a little to show for their efforts in terms of actual marine geological samples and data.
But the idea of drilling under oceans had taken root and would evolve into the next program, the Deep Sea Drilling Project (DSDP). The argument put forth was that all that impressive offshore drilling technology that had been developed during Mohole coupled with rapid advances in offshore drilling for oil and gas exploration would make it possible to drill and sample in the deep oceans for a multitude of science objectives. The difference would be that DSDP would not have a single, blinkered objective of reaching the mantle at one location in the ocean, but would instead make a point of sampling the sediment columns and underlying basement rocks at as many places in the world’s oceans as possible. This 3-D survey of the crust under the oceans would be mankind’s first opportunity to study actual samples from which enormous science knowledge could be gained. The sediment column alone carries the historical record of the earth’s climate, creatures, and tectonic activity for the past 200+ million years. And because most of it lies relatively peacefully under thousands of feet of ocean water the geologic record is not disturbed by the more active forces found on continents – erosion from wind and water, large temperature changes, and active geological process like earthquakes, avalanches, mudslides, and volcanic eruptions. Actually the active geological processes also occur under the oceans but in many places the sediment column is virtually undisturbed.
The planners and promoters of DSDP assured that rigorous core sampling of the sediment column and underlying basement rocks would be the prime objective and obtainable using technology already available on the market. The key piece of the technology was a then-modern drillship, like the 392-ft long Glomar Challenger. The NSF agreed (somewhat reluctantly, it is said) because they still felt a little stung by the cost overruns suffered duriing Project Mohole, in which they believed scientific enthusiasm had overshadowed common sense and good engineering judgment.
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| Glomar Challenger |
With proper goals and cautions put in place by NSF funders, in 1966 the DSDP signed a contract for scientific conversion of a Global Marine drillship, just beginning construction. The Phase I arrangement called for outfitting of the Glomar Challenger plus 18 months of scientific offshore drilling operations beginning in 1968. Success of the initial Legs lead to more confidence and Phase 2 was funded by the NSF for 30 more months of drilling operations, plus onshore support. Before the program ended incremental program extensions of a few years at a time lasted until 1984. Funding was from NSF at first but were supplemented by monies from partner nations in later years as success bread success on the international geoscience level.
Initial scientific successes of the Challenger voyages were profound including discovery of salt domes in the Gulf of Mexico (today exploited as traps for a lot of petroleum reserves) and proof of seafloor spreading in the mid-Atlantic Ocean. The debates over the theories of continental drift and seafloor spreading had raged for decades without final resolution until Challenger crews recovered core samples convincingly settling the argument.
In the early 1980’s DSDP and global scientific drilling in general faced a crossroads. Many competitors for the scientific funds called for a new direction, i.e. use the science money for something else; drilling the oceans was well advanced. Scripps Institution of Oceanography, host of DSDP, was losing some interest as their leaders no longer saw ocean drilling as the kind of leading edge science they wanted for Scripps. Others declared that the Challenger was nearing the end of its useful life and that much more sophisticated drillships were now commonplace. At the end of a lot of politicking, lobbying and scientific conferences the Ocean Drilling Program (ODP) was born. ODP was to be based at Texas A&M University, a most enthusiastic and willing new host institution. Funds were to be provided to lease and convert a newer, more modern drillship and a contract was signed for 5 years of operations at sea in pursuit of marine geology research. At the time ODP began some critics looked at the 96 voyages of DSDP and asked, Hasn’t the floor of the oceans been pretty well surveyed and sampled by now? By the end of DSDP operations 624 sites spread across all the oceans of the world had been occupied and drilled. If those sites were to be superimposed on a map of the United States and distributed evenly it would average out to 12-1/2 drill sites per state. Imagine trying to characterize all of the geology of, say, Montana or Michigan with samples from only 12 sites.
ODP kicked off in 1984 with transfer of 20 key personnel from DSDP in San Diego to ODP temporary offices in College Station, TX. I was one of those people. At about the same time a survey and competition for the new drillship was completed with the selection of the Sedco/BP 471, a modern 470-ft drillship that had only just been put into oil and gas service, which was offered by Sedco to Texas A&M at an attractive lease rate. The ship was sent to a yard for extensive work to convert it to a scientific drillship complete with upgraded drill string and heave compensator and a 7-story built in lab stack (including even a scanning electron microscope). The ship’s drilling crews were trained on the use of the unfamiliar science coring equipment and the A&M personnel learned the details of the big new vessel. In January 1985 the new ship, unofficially re-christened as JOIDES Resolution set sail on the first ODP leg from Miami, Florida after a brief, successful sea trial. The drilling expeditions of the Resolution continue to this day, 28 years later, with almost no interruptions. DSDP plus ODP (later IODP) have been proven to be two of the most productive and cost effective major science research programs in history.
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| JOIDES Resolution |
For some interesting historical references, see:
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| Map of Drill Sites for DSDP, ODP and IODP |
For some interesting historical references, see:
International Geophysical Year
Project Mohole, DSDP and ODP History – Ocean Leadership article http://www.oceanleadership.org/2011/celebrating-the-50th-anniversary-of-project-mohole/
Life Magazine article by John Steinbeck, Project Mohole
Deep Sea Drilling Project
“Be Careful Who You Meet at Sea”
At the end of a Resolution expedition drilling around the Bahamas in 1985 we were headed back to the final port of call in Miami sailing in the normal sea channels between the islands. The area at the time (maybe still to this day) was rife with seagoing drug smugglers. The US Coast Guard maintains visual surveillance of the area and we routinely spotted their P-3 Orion spotter aircraft passing by overhead at low altitude. Nothing unusual about any of this until our captain received a radio call from the Coast Guard plane asking if we could assist in a vessel-in-distress situation. The problem was a small craft with fishermen out of Miami that had run out of fuel and was adrift in one of the Bahamian shipping channels. They needed gasoline, could we provide any? Our captain explained that we would be glad to help but that we were a diesel-powered vessel with no more than a few gallons of gasoline on hand.
While this information was being chewed over another vessel jumped into the radio conversation. They explained they were a private sailboat with a good supply of gasoline, but could also operate on diesel if necessary. They would give up their gasoline to the vessel-in-distress if we could first load them up with a tankful of diesel fuel. This seemed like a good plan so we gave the sailboat crew our coordinates and hove-to to wait for them. The sailboat crew turned out to be a quite young man and wife on a see-the-world cruise in a 36-ft sloop. By the time they came alongside the drillship and took on their full load of diesel darkness was beginning to fall. We did not know if they could easily find the drifting vessel-in-distress. And since we had a faster cruise speed we offered to go on ahead, find the drifting boat, and standby with our derrick lights turned on (200-ft high) for them to use as a navigational aid.
The good part began when we found the drifting boat. It was a small, open runabout with twin high horsepower outboards. Barely big enough to be a couple miles offshore and very out of place in this remote stretch of the Bahamas. And its crew was right out of central casting for an episode of Miami Vice – two Cuban-looking dudes in tight pants, silk shirts and gold chains. As soon as our enormous drillship with all lights blazing pulled up alongside they went into a frenzy dumping suspicious-looking black plastic bags over the side, in full view of the 60 or 70 crewmembers on our ship who wanted to see and photograph the show. We quickly decided that not only would we wait for the young couple on the sailboat, but that we’d hang around until the refueling operation was complete and the sailboat was safely on its way.
And here is the spooky part. During all of the time we were standing by the drifting speedboat there was another vessel silently circling us at about a mile or two away. This boat was a virtual Onassis luxury yacht. Large, sleek and very expensive looking. But it would not answer any radio hail, even when the Coast Guard plane “ordered” it to respond or stand in violation of various maritime laws requiring all vessels to render assistance in cases of emergency at sea. It didn’t communicate and did not leave the scene, just cruised slowly around us all at a range too far to see any people on board. We could never make out any name or registration markings. Very eerie.
Eventually the silk-shirt “fishermen” got their load of gasoline, never said a word to us, never tried to recover their lost packages dropped over the side and took off in a hurry. The sailboat couple thanked us for our assistance and departed on their own itinerary. The Coast Guard plane gave up trying to raise the mystery yacht on the radio, thanked us and flew off. As we departed the area the silent yacht was still to be seem lurking around, maybe looking for floating garbage bags, maybe getting ready to chase down the incompetent drug smugglers in the high-powered outboard runabout.
I never had a good feeling about the future for those two desperados. Their twin outboards probably gave them enough speed to outrun the luxury yacht and any lurking Coast Guard cutter, assuming calm seas, but would their new supply of gas give them enough range to reach safety? And is any place safe when you screw up a drug deal that badly?
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