By Charlotte Tonkin
A scientific ship set on exploring and expanding our knowledge of the earth’s climate, including changes in sea levels, is docked in the capital before it undertakes its next voyage with New Zealand scientists on board to work out 30 million years of geology.
The ship, Joides Resolution, is four days away from setting sale to Antarctica, where 30 scientists, 20 technicians and 50 drill crews will work around the clock for two months to discover how the ice sheet has retreated and extended in the past 30 million years.
“It’s exhilarating,” says Expedition Project Manager Peter Blum. “There is no other way to generate so many results and get so many samples and measurements.”
The samples are only possible through a state of the art drill on board the ship.
First a drill pipe made up of many separate hollow sections joined together is dropped to the sea floor, then the drill itself is lowered down the pipes to cut into the sediment.
It can drill to depths of up to seven kilometres in water, and then two more kilometres beneath the sea floor.
A sample is then brought on board, but preserving that sample is vital to ensuring accurate information is gained.
Each core sample undergoes around 100 tests and is stored indefinitely.
The Integrated Ocean Drilling Programme, or IODP, is an international operation dedicated to investigating Earth’s geological history.
Its aim is to understand how seal levels have changed over millions of years, and how that may affect coastlines around the world.
“The study will help us understand what is happening now and in the future – that is the ultimate goal,” says Mr Blum.
New Zealand joined the programme in 2008. The ship and her crew have just returned from a two month drilling mission off the East Coast of the South Island.
“A little over 1900m of core was recovered – that was a fantastic achievement,” says New Zealand sedimentologist Greg Browne.
A total of 20,000 samples were taken which scientists will be researching for decades.
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