JOIDES Resolution

JOIDES Resolution
History
Cyprus
Name	JOIDES Resolution
Namesake	HMS Resolution (1771)
Owner	Overseas Drilling Limited, a subsidiary of Siem Offshore AS
Operator	Siem Offshore AS
Research operator	JOIDES Resolution Science Operator at Texas A&M University on behalf of the International Ocean Discovery Program
Port of registry	Limassol, Cyprus
Builder	Halifax Shipyard in Nova Scotia, Canada
Launched	1978
Renamed	Sedco/BP 471 (1978 – 1996) JOIDES Resolution (1996 – present)
Refit	2009
Home port	None
Identification	IMO number: 7423081 MMSI number: 209489000 Callsign: 5BMM3
Nickname(s)	JR
General characteristics
Class & type	Special Service: Research Drilling Vessel
Type	Ocean-going Research Vessel
Tonnage	10,282 GT
Displacement	9,992 – 18,636 ST
Length	470.5 ft (143.4 m)
Beam	70 ft (21.3 m)
Height	202 ft (62 m)
Draught	21 ft 8 in (6.6 m) reported max
Ice class	1B
Installed power	9,000 hp (6,700 kW)
Speed	11.7 knots (21.7 km/h; 13.5 mph) average 15 knots (28 km/h; 17 mph) max
Endurance	75 Days
Boats & landing craft carried	4
Complement	125
Crew	65 + 60 Scientists/Technicians

The riserless research vessel JOIDES Resolution (Joint Oceanographic Institutions for Deep Earth Sampling), often referred to as the JR, was one of the scientific drilling ships used by the International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP), an international, multi-drilling platform research program. JOIDES Resolution was previously the main research ship used during the Ocean Drilling Program (ODP) and was used along with the Japanese drilling vessel Chikyu and other mission-specific drilling platforms throughout the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program. She was the successor of Glomar Challenger.

The ship was first launched in 1978 as Sedco/BP 471, an oil exploration vessel. It was converted for scientific use 6 years later in 1984 and began working as the main research ship for ODP in January 1985. JOIDES Resolution was modernized during 2007–2008 and returned to active service in February 2009 following an extensive renovation of her laboratory facilities and quarters.

Texas A&M University (TAMU) acted as manager and science operator of JOIDES Resolution as a research facility for IODP. The JOIDES Resolution Science Operator (JRSO) was funded through a cooperative agreement with the US National Science Foundation (NSF), with international contributions from 23 Program member countries. The JOIDES Resolution ended operations in August 2024 following the non-renewal of NSF support.

JOIDES Resolution was named after HMS Resolution, in which Captain James Cook made his second and third voyages of exploration in the Pacific in the 1770s.^[1]

JOIDES Resolution employed wireline coring and logging techniques to recover sequences of core and geophysical data from beneath the seafloor. JOIDES Resolution operated in water depths between 76 metres (249 ft) and nominally 5,800 metres (19,000 ft) and reached a maximum depth of just over 2,100 metres (6,900 ft) beneath the seafloor. The longest drill string deployment was 6,919 metres (22,700 ft) while drilling in 5,724 metres (18,780 ft) water depth. Over her lifespan as a research vessel, JOIDES Resolution recovered more than 373 kilometres (232 mi) of core.

JOIDES Resolution was a state-of-the-art "floating Earth science laboratory" equipped with analytical equipment, software, and databases that allowed shipboard scientists to conduct research at sea as soon as cores were recovered. Virtual 360° tours of laboratory areas and a flyover video of the ship are available online [see External links.]

The laboratory space included facilities for visually describing core at the macro- and microscale; microscopes for petrological sediment analysis and biostratigraphic assessment; instrumentation for measuring physical properties, paleomagnetism, and the geochemistry of pore waters, sediment, and rocks; and equipment for cutting and sectioning samples from rock and sediment cores. The downhole measurements laboratory was used as a staging and data-acquisition area for obtaining in situ records of subseafloor formation properties ranging from borehole well logs to formation temperature and pressure.

In addition to laboratories and technical resources, the JOIDES Resolution contained a conference room, offices, cabins (berths) for members of the crew and science parties, and a hospital, galley, and mess hall. A gym, movie room, and lounge with a small library were also provided.

The capabilities of JOIDES Resolution and the tools and techniques used to address science objectives were continually improved during the life span of the scientific ocean drilling program. Key operational innovations included development of a half-length advanced piston corer (HLAPC) and the drill-in-casing and hydraulic release tool (HRT).

The HLAPC takes a 4.7 m (15 ft) core rather than a standard 9.5 m (31 ft) APC core. It was designed to potentially extend the depth of piston core penetration, allowing collection of cores suitable for high-resolution paleoceanography and paleoclimatology from greater depths. After initial deployment in 2013, the HLAPC increased the piston coring depth record to 490 m (1,610 ft) below seafloor. The HLAPC was also the only coring tool to successfully recover unconsolidated sands from the Bengal Fan (Expedition 354) and in other environments where the lithology proved difficult to recover using either the APC or extended core barrel (XCB) tools.

Deep sediment holes, including those that penetrate basement rock below sediments, traditionally have required pre-drilling a deep hole and installing double and triple casing strings to stabilize the upper hole, requiring as long as 7–10 days. Starting in 2014 on Expedition 352, the approach of drilling-in a single casing string and reentry system with a mud motor and underreamer without pre-drilling a hole resulted in casing the upper part of a hole in a shorter time (3–4 days). In 2015, a hydraulic release tool (HRT) was adapted to drill-in a reentry system with a short casing string to start a hole in bare rock seafloor at Southwest Indian Ridge (Expedition 360). The HRT and related hardware is now the standard drill-in casing system to establish a single casing string for deep sediment penetration.

Scientific ocean drilling allows researchers to access the records of millions of years of Earth's climatic, biological, chemical, and geological history that are buried beneath the ocean floor. Advances in our understanding of Earth's past can help us to better understand and predict its future, and can inform decision-making about important environmental issues facing society today.

JOIDES Resolution was managed and operated by the JRSO, which was based at TAMU. TAMU was science operator to JOIDES Resolution starting in 1983, managing the ODP from 1983 to 2003, partnering with the Consortium for Ocean Leadership and Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University to co-manage the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program from 2004 to 2013, and managing the IODP from 2013 to 2024.^[2][3] In October 2014, the JOIDES Resolution Science Operator was formalized as the implementing organization for IODP.^[4][5] JRSO responsibilities included overseeing the JR's science operations; archiving data, samples, and logs collected by the current program; and producing and publicizing program publications, including expedition results, program plans, and fiscal reports.

With input from hundreds of international scientists, long-range science plans were developed to guide multidisciplinary international collaboration on scientific ocean drilling. These plans comprise a set of critical scientific questions that require drilling deep below the ocean floor. The IODP Science Plan for 2013–2023, Illuminating Earth's Past, Present, and Future, focuses on challenges in four areas.

• Climate and ocean change: reading the past, informing the future

• Biosphere frontiers: deep life, biodiversity, and environmental forcing of ecosystems

• Earth connections: deep processes and their impact on Earth's surface environment

• Earth in motion: processes and hazards on human time scales

The themes and challenges outlined in the IODP Science Plan were addressed by drilling expeditions that resulted from peer-reviewed proposals evaluated by the Science Evaluation Panel and an external review committee. The highest priority proposals were forwarded to the JOIDES Resolution Facility Board (JRFB), which then worked with the JRSO to set an expedition schedule to most efficiently and effectively achieve the proposals' objectives. The JRFB and NSF reviewed and approved the JRSO Annual Program Plans, which comprised tasks and budget requests in support of the scheduled expeditions.

The JRSO and the JRFB worked together to set a regional ship track, communicating to the science community the planned areas for JOIDES Resolution operations, generally 2–3 years ahead of the schedule. As a result of this regional planning, JOIDES Resolution was able to address several science plan themes on multiple, complementary expeditions. For example, Expeditions 350, 351, and 352, as well as Expedition 371 addressed the fundamental question of how the subduction process initiates. Likewise, two years of drilling in the western Pacific and Indian Oceans resulted in multiple expeditions that addressed the origin and initiation of the Monsoon climate system. Four planned drilling expeditions in the Antarctic and Southern Ocean will improve our understanding of how the Antarctic Ice Sheet responds to climatic forcing. These groups of expeditions formed virtual missions that made it possible to address science questions that are beyond the scope of an individual expedition.

In March 2023, the U.S. National Science Foundation announced that it would no longer continue its funding in support of the JOIDES Resolution due to increasing cost of operation.^[6] The last expedition concluded in August 2024, after which the ship began demobilization in Amsterdam.

The ship embarked on its last expedition (IODP Expedition 403) in June 2024.^[7] Though there are no concrete plans for its replacement, repositories for the ship's collected cores will be maintained at Texas A&M, the University of Bremen, and Kōchi University in Japan.^[8]

JOIDES Resolution began conducting scientific ocean drilling expeditions in 1985. During the Ocean Drilling Program (1985–2003), JOIDES Resolution conducted 111 expeditions and drilled 669 sites. During the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (2003–2013), JOIDES Resolution conducted 35 expeditions and drilled 145 sites. Highlights of Ocean Drilling Program and Integrated Ocean Drilling Program expeditions can be found in the final technical reports for those programs (see References). Monitoring of boreholes began with the installation of a broadband seismometer in Hole 794D in 1989 during the Ocean Drilling Program. Subsequently, more than 30 long-term borehole observatories ranging from simple to complex have been installed.

Detailed JOIDES Resolution coring statistics by program are available online.^[9] The following tables include overall statistics and highlights.

Program	Expeditions completed	Operations days	Miles traveled	Sites visited	Holes drilled	Cores recovered	Meters of core recovered
International Ocean Discovery Program (October 2013–September 2024; Expeditions 349–403)	48	3,994	208,615	220	599	16,226	93,294
Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (2003–2013)	31	1,836	126,889	145	439	8,491	57,289
Ocean Drilling Program (1985–2003)	111	6,591	355,781	669	1,797	35,772	222,704
Total	190	12,421	691,285	1,034	2,835	60,489	373,287

Program	Northernmost site	Southernmost site	Shallowest water depth	Deepest water depth	Deepest hole
International Ocean Discovery Program	79.1 deg N	76.6 deg S	87 m	5,012 m	1,806 m
Integrated Ocean Drilling Program	67 deg N	66.4 deg S	95.5 m	4,479 m	1,928 m
Ocean Drilling Program	80.5 deg N	70.8 deg S	37.5 m	5,980 m	2,111 m

JOIDES Resolution was used as a platform for education and outreach. Onboard Education/Outreach Officers sailed on each expedition, and JRSO personnel were available to assist with ship-to-shore video conferencing, port call tours, and outreach efforts. The inaugural School of Rock workshop (Hands-on Research Experiences for Earth and Ocean Science Educators) was held on board JOIDES Resolution in 2005, and the ship continued to be used for School of Rock workshops when it was available on transits or during maintenance periods until 2024.

• Deep Sea Drilling Project
• Ocean Drilling Program
• Integrated Ocean Drilling Program
• International Ocean Discovery Program

• JOIDES Resolution, MarineTraffic. Accessed 2 February 2023.
• In Search of Earth's Secrets pop-up/drill-down traveling exhibit
• IODP JRSO information by expedition
• IODP expedition schedule for the JOIDES Resolution
• JOIDES Resolution daily reports, weekly reports, and site summaries
• JOIDES Resolution history and drilling highlights
• JOIDES Resolution vessel tour
• JOIDES Resolution drill ship (old official website)
• JOIDES Resolution Science Operator (official website)
• JOIDES Resolution coring statistics
• education website
• JOIDES Resolution outreach: School of Rock Archived 2018-02-09 at the Wayback Machine
• IODP publications
• Legacy long-range planning reports
• ODP legacy website