data.oceandrilling.org

Accessing Scientific Ocean Drilling Data JR From Shore

If you take a look around any major Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP) office, you'll see all the big old volumes of Deep Sea Drilling Project (DSDP) and Ocean Drilling Program (ODP) data collected from scientific investigations around the world.

Thankfully, all those heavy books have now been digitized and are easier than ever to access! We have several ways YOU can explore or locate the ocean core data you want.

1: What on Earth is a Core?

Ocean drilling samples are recovered in cores, long tubes of material collected while drilling beneath the sea floor. Specific terminology is used to precisely describe the location of a sample taken in a core.

Leg, Expedition : During the history of ocean drilling, the science has been carried out in segments called legs during DSDP and ODP and expeditions during IODP.

Site, Hole : A site is a location at which drilling is conducted. Drill sites are numbered consecutively starting with the first drilled by the Glomar Challenger in 1968. If more than one hole is drilled at a site, each hole receives a different letter suffix (A, B, C, etc).

Core : Each cored interval is usually 9.5 to 9.6 meters and 6 cm in diameter.

Section : A core is cut into sections 1.5 meters long, numbered from the top of the core.

Interval : A sample from a core is designated by distance in centimeters from the top of the section to the top and bottom of the sample removed

Visit "What on Earth is a Core" on the JOIDES Resolution webpage (http://www.joidesresolution.org/node/266) for a collection of resources explaining cores and core drilling.

2: Google Earth

Use Google Earth to find all the drill sites and prospective sites searchable by location or geological feature.

Use this link (http://data.oceandrilling.org/labs/dea/iodp.kml) in Google Earth if you want a desktop experience.

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3: Access these Online Resources.

Use Google Earth to find all the drill sites and prospective sites searchable by location or geological feature.

To find a particular objective for IODP Expeditions 301 through 313 and beyond, try http://iodp.tamu.edu/scienceops/expeditions.html.
For ODP (Legs 100-210), go to http://www-odp.tamu.edu/publications/. Click on "Preliminary Reports" to search through a list of ODP locations with links to the data.
ODP Leg summaries can be found at http://www.odplegacy.org/science_results/leg_summaries.html.
Unfortunately, DSDP is a little more difficult to search by topic. You just have to slog through the publications at http://www.deepseadrilling.org/.
Access IODP, ODP and DSDP data and photos directly at http://iodp.tamu.edu/janusweb/general/dbtable.cgi. Just keep clicking on the blue numbers until you find what you need.