Marine Micropaleontology, 3 (1978): 201--202 @Elsevier Scientific Publishing Company, Amsterdam --Printed in The Netherlands

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Editorial

THE FUTURE OF SCIENTIFIC OCEAN DRILLING AND IMPLICATIONS FOR MARINE MICROPALEONTOLOGY

Most micropaleontologists are now familiar with the achievements and the voluminous published results of the Joint Oceanographic Institutions Deep Earth Sampling (JOIDES) and the Deep Sea Drilling Project (DSDP). Since the beginning of the project in 1968, the drilling vessel Glomar Challenger has log- ged over sixty cruises in all the oceans except the Arctic, and recovered some 53,000 m of cored material now available in the DSDP re- positories, accessible to any earth scientist with an interest in marine geology. The pre- liminary results and the data published in the Initial Reports have reached an impressive volume and this program is already being lauded as the greatest single thrust in the re- naissance of the Earth Sciences.

One of the important outcomes of the DSDP has been that it has brought together earth scientists of widely differing interests (e.g. micropaleontologists, sedimentologists, geophysicists and geochemists). These inter- disciplinary efforts have led to important in- sights into the history of the oceans and the continents that were formerly in the domain of informed speculations. A decade of coop- eration has lead to the appreciation of wide- ranging problems and a large spectrum of the earth science community is at present taking a collective inventory of both the successes and the failures of the project as well as its future.

The confirmation of the sea-floor spreading hypothesis and the youthful age of the ocean basins were some of the more widely appre- ciated results of the DSDP. Equally visible was the evidence provided for the vertical movements of the oceanic crust and the pres- ence of hydrocarbons in the deeper ocean areas. However, the most important outcome for micropaleontologists has been that the

DSDP results are leading to a more unified view of the paleoenvironmental history of the world oceans. It has been demonstrated that large-scale paleoceanographic changes have been a rule rather than exception in the past. Many of the more drastic paleoceanographic changes were associated with: (a) the frag- mentation of Pangaea and the continuing changes in the ocean/continent configuration, (b) change from a poorly oxygenated to a well oxygenated ocean, and (c) the develop- ment. of a psychrosphere, reflecting the change from a relatively warm bottom ~a te r to cold bottom water conditions. These oscil- lations have in turn greatly affected the course o~ ,:volution of biota and their distri- butional patterns in the oceans through time. Thanks to DSDP, ~ve now have a greater ~p- preciation of the past oceanic circulation pat- terns, ocean chemistry and climatic w d gla- cial history, vs far back as the early Creta- ceous.

In a recent report entitled The Future of Scientific Ocean Drilling, an ad-hoc subcom- mittee of the JOIDES has summarized both the past scientific achievements of the drilling program and the future objectives. The in- cluded "White Papers" by the JOIDES Ad- visory Panels on Ocean Paleoenvironment and the Passive Margins would be of special inter- est to the readers of Marine Micropaleontol- ogy. Copies of this document can be obtained from the JOIDES Office, Department of Oceanography at the University of Washing- ton, Seattle, Wash. 98195.

The ad-hoc committee report identifies the scientific goals for both the immediate future and the long term. Of particular interest to marine micropaleontologists is the proposed emphasis on the South Atlantic to study two

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of the major paleoceanographic events in de- tail: the transition from a stagnant to well oxygenated ocean in the Cretaceous and the transition from a warm to cold ocean in the mid-Cenozoic. Longer term plans, beyond 1981, call for a greater emphasis of drilling on the continental margins that have been so far 0mitted due to safety problems of possible blow-outs. Also the paleoenvironmentalists would like to see more drilling in the higher latitudes where clues about the factors con- trolling the oceanographic/climatic develop- ments are most likely to be found.

Many of the future scientific goals, includ- ing the paleoenvironmental ones, require a drilling ship with the ability to penetrate deeper than the Glomar Challenger is capable of at present. Keeping this in mind the salvage ship Glomar Explorer has been proposed as a possible replacement for the Challdnger. Initial feasibility studies have shown that the Explorer will have to be fitted with a buoyant riser system and a bottom mounted blow-out preventer, if deeper penetrations of the con- tinental margins are to be achieved. Further engineering studies for the conversion of the Explorer into an efficient drilling vessel will have to be undertaken; the U.S. National Science Foundation has already allocated partial funds for this study in fiscal year 1979, which were recently approved by the U.S. Congress.

The main critique of the future scientific drilling, especially the conversion and the use of the Glomar Explorer, is the mounting costs of the operation of such a program. It has been estimated that the use of the Explorer will essentially triple the present operational costs, and the total cost of the envisaged pro- gram in the next ten years may be up to five times the costs of the drilling program so far. As earth scientists we are used to relatively small research budgets and weary of expensive scientific endeavours. However, the ultimate returns of the proposed drilling program and the insights into fundamental problems of earth history it promises, would seem to justi- fy the expense.

As micropaleontologists and paieoecolo- gists it is our professional duty to enthusiasti- cally support not only the allocation of sub- stantially increased funds for more extensive studies based on the enormous amount of core material already available in the DSDP repositories, but also any meaningful future plans for ocean drilling and coring that will help answer some of the most important basic problems in paleoceanography, despite the increased costs.

Bilal U. Haq Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Woods Hole, Mass. 02543