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Drillship coming to work in Gulf of Alaska The goal isn’t to find oil and gas, but rather clues to the history of the Earth recorded in sediments and rocks beneath the seafloor Wesley Loy For Petroleum News
A drillship is expected to turn up this summer in Valdez. But it won’t be what it looks like.
The JOIDES Resolution is a research vessel that’s planning a scientific drilling expedition in the Gulf of Alaska. It won’t be an oil-hunting trip.
The ship works for the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program, or IODP. The program has three partners: Texas A&M University, Columbia University and the Consortium for Ocean Leadership, a nonprofit organization based in Washington, D.C. The National Science Foundation provides funding for the drilling program.
“The drillship travels throughout the oceans sampling the sediments and rocks beneath the seafloor,” the IODP website says. “The scientific samples and data are used to study Earth’s past history, including plate tectonics, ocean currents, climate changes, evolutionary characteristics and extinctions of marine life, and mineral deposits. Drilling operations are conducted purely for scientific purposes and do not include oil exploration.”
Tectonics, glaciers and climate The JOIDES Resolution is scheduled to arrive at Valdez during a 61-day expedition beginning May 29 at Victoria, British Columbia, where the ship is currently docked.
John Jaeger of the University of Florida and Sean Gulick of the University of Texas will be the co-chief scientists onboard.
A map indicates the ship is expected to drill at five sites in the central Gulf of Alaska.
The trip is called “Expedition 341: Southern Alaska Margin Tectonics, Climate and Sedimentation.”
Through coring and downhole measurements, the scientists aim to gather a “sedimentary record from southern Alaska to examine the ties between tectonically driven orogenic processes, glacial processes, and north Pacific and global climate.”
Orogeny is the process of mountain making or upheaval.
The scientists note that the Gulf of Alaska borders the St. Elias orogen of Alaska and Canada, the highest coastal mountain range on Earth and the highest range in North America.
In spirit of Capt. Cook The JOIDES Resolution, with a tall derrick middeck, is named for the HMS Resolution, which explored the Pacific Ocean and the Antarctic region under the command of Capt. James Cook more than 200 years ago.
“Like its namesake, the purpose of the current Resolution is to sail for scientific exploration. But this time, those discoveries lie deep beneath the oceans,” the IODP website says.
The ship originally was an oil exploration vessel, the Sedco/BP 471. It was converted for scientific research beginning in 1985.
The JOIDES Resolution is owned by Overseas Drilling Ltd., a subsidiary of Siem Offshore AS. Based in Norway, Siem Offshore operates a fleet of vessels serving the global oil and gas industry.
The Consortium for Ocean Leadership, one of the IODP partners, in March presented Alaska’s two U.S. senators, Lisa Murkowski and Mark Begich, an award for “outstanding contributions to ocean research and education.”
The Alaska Department of Natural Resources is taking public comment until April 19 on the IODP’s application to “conduct scientific coring and wireline logging operations in Port of Valdez.”
For more information on the IODP expedition, go to http://bit.ly/ZB6vsE.
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