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‘A huge loss’: is this the end of the ship that helped us understand life on Earth? | Science

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‘A huge loss’: is this the end of the ship that helped us understand life on Earth? | Science

IIn the early summer of this year, a ship sailed around the Norwegian archipelago of Spitsbergen. But this was no ordinary ship. The Joides Resolution for almost 40 years Drilling into the ocean floor was done to collect samples and data that helped scientists study the history and structure of the Earth. Expeditions on the ship have made crucial contributions to our understanding of the climate crisis, tectonic plate theory, the origins of life on Earth and natural hazards such as earthquakes and eruptions. Yet the two-month trip around Spitsbergen would be the last.

The National Science Foundation (NSF), the US agency that provided scientists at Texas A&M University with funding for the ship, announced last year that it would not provide funding for the drillship after September 2024. It was a statement that shocked the global scientific community. and meant that Spitsbergen would be the ship’s last foray.

“It is devastating that we no longer have this workhorse, because we cannot obtain this data in any other way,” said Thomas Ronge, the project manager of the Spitsbergen expedition. “We are losing our potential to read the history book of climate change.”

To understand the significance of the loss of the drillship, it is useful to look at the evolution of this type of exploration and what it has tried to achieve – in many cases successfully.

It really started in the early 1960s, when a group of scientists embarked on a mission to travel from a floating ship called Cuss I to the boundary between the Earth’s crust, the Earth’s outermost layer, and the mantle, the next and thickest layer, to be drilled. low. Project Mohole, as it was known, was chronicled by novelist and amateur oceanographer John Steinbeck in an article for Life magazine. “This is the opening gambit of a long-term plan to explore the unknown two-thirds of our planet that lies beneath the sea,” he wrote. “We know less about this area than we do about the moon.”

  • The Cuss 1 ship off the coast of Guadalupe Island, as the Mohole Project attempted to drill through the second layer of the Earth, March 1961. Photo: Fritz Goro/Life/Shutterstock

That mission was ultimately unsuccessful, but laid the foundation for scientific ocean drilling, the concept of which is simple. Layers of sediment accumulate underwater and eventually become rock under pressure. Unlike on land, where disparate factors change soil conformation in unpredictable ways, layers on the seafloor usually accumulate at a regular rate and remain undisturbed. The deeper you drill, the further back in time you can go.

After the failure of Mohole came the drillship Glomar Challenger and from 1985 the Joides Resolution. Just last year, 62 years after the Mohole project, narrated by Steinbeck, scientists aboard the Joides succeeded for the first time in removing rock samples from the Earth’s mantle. “We did it,” one of the expedition members told the New York Times. “We now have a wealth of rocks that allow us to systematically study the processes that people think are relevant to the origins of life on Earth.”

Still, such discoveries, at least using a US-funded ship, seem unlikely in the near future.

“(The end of funding) is a huge loss for science and for everyone,” said Adriane Lam, a researcher at Binghamton University in New York who was aboard the Joides this summer for the ship’s final expedition. “The things we find have huge implications for things like where people live and may not be able to live in the future if the Earth continues to warm.”

During their latest expedition, the Joides drilled into the seabed to help scientists understand how an Arctic Ocean ice sheet collapsed thousands of years ago. By analyzing how the ice sheet on Spitsbergen melted, researchers hope to model the possible collapse of a vulnerable equivalent in West Antarctica.

The NSF attributed its decision to end its funding to rising costs and a lack of financial support from International Ocean Discovery Program partners. But many see the expenses for the ship as paltry compared to its benefits. To put it into perspective, the total NSF budget for 2023 was almost $10 billion (£7.5 billion); the $71 million spent on the Joides is 0.7% of that.

The loss of the Joides also opens up opportunities for other countries to get ahead in the race for discoveries. Some of the crew of the Joides have already been contacted by what could be the next protagonist of scientific ocean drilling: China. In December last year, Beijing launched its first drillship, the Mengxiang, a super-advanced vessel that will most likely take over the field.

“People were shocked and taken aback when NSF made that announcement,” said Suzanne O’Connell, a professor of earth and environmental sciences at Wesleyan University in Connecticut. “In a sense, the fact that the Chinese built their ship could help us build a new ship.”

  • The Joides on expedition in Santorini’s caldera near the Palea and Nea Kameni volcanoes, January 2023, to help understand how and why volcanoes erupt. Photo: Thomas Ronge/IODP

  • On an expedition to Iceberg Alley – where many icebergs are melting – in Antarctica, April 2019. Core samples of debris released from melted icebergs could provide insight into the history of Antarctic ice sheet melting. Photo: Thomas Ronge/IODP

O’Connell made two expeditions on the Glomar Challenger and eight on the Joides. She is now calling on US congressmen and the media to try to right the ship.

There remains a small hope for the Joides to avoid the scrap heap. A bill introduced to the House of Representatives in July asked the NSF to spend $60 million to operate the ship for at least three missions next year. According to a spokesperson for Congressman Michael McCaul – the Republican representative of the Texas A&M University district who is pushing for additional funding – the bill’s chances of passage are “high.” However, it will probably not be voted on until mid-December at the earliest and the final text is anything but final.

  • A scan of the last core recovered by the Joides off Spitsbergen on July 26, 2024. After drilling approximately 373,000 meters of sediments and rocks in nearly 40 years of missions, these are the last 4.46 meters of sediments recovered. Photo: Expedition 403 Science Festival

In the meantime, Texas A&M’s equipment will be removed from the ship and the crew will likely be reassigned. It’s not clear if there will be time to get the Joides operational again at that point, and James McManus, director of ocean sciences for the NSF, says he “cannot speculate on this scenario.”

With no guarantees for the future, several drilling projects have been postponed indefinitely, and an entire branch of science is in danger of stalling, at least in the West.

“We are losing the ship, which is already a big blow,” said Ronge, who is now in Texas working on the cores of the latest expedition. “But the worst thing is the loss of expertise, because if the people who can now steer the ship blindfolded find another job or retire, their knowledge will be gone. And without them it will take ten years before we are back to full capacity.”

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