MEDIA ADVISORY
9 February 2011

Drilling Ship to Visit Auckland After Pacific Discovery Mission

Louisville Seamount Trail co-chief scientist and expedition leader Anthony Koppers will give a public talk at the Auckland Museum on the highlights of their recent expedition and the expected outcomes of the ongoing research on Sunday, February 13 at 5.30pm. Tours of the ship will be available at Freyberg Wharf on Monday 14 February.

Deep Sea Exploration: On 17 December 2010, a team of scientists set sail from Auckland on the “Louisville Seamount Trail” expedition off the northeast coast of New Zealand. Over the past two months, the research vessel JOIDES Resolution, has drilled and recovered rock cores from sites located on four extinct volcanoes that form part of an underwater volcanic chain known as the Louisville Seamount Trail. Similar to Hawaii, these volcanoes are believed to have formed above a “hotspot” in the deep earth, which fuelled eruptions on the seafloor. The goal of the expedition was to learn more about hotspots and how they may have wandered over the past 80 million years within the deep interior of our planet (see further details below).

With the expedition completed, the JOIDES Resolution makes a final visit to Auckland this weekend. The media, invited guests, local scientists, and students will have opportunities to tour the ship and meet the scientists participating in the expedition.

Background
Forty years of ocean exploration by scientific ocean drilling have laid the foundation for much of what we know about the dynamic history of our planet and its oceans over the past 150 million years. The JOIDES Resolution is an essential research vessel of the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP), an international research programme dedicated to advancing scientific understanding of the Earth through drilling, coring, and monitoring the rocks, sediments and processes beneath the sea floor.

New Zealand participates in IODP through the Australian and New Zealand IODP Consortium (ANZIC). New Zealand and Australia play an integral part in IODP, with four scientists from GNS Science, Otago University, and Victoria University participating in expeditions off the Canterbury coast and near Antarctica last summer and a total of 19 ANZIC scientists participating in expeditions over the last three years. Also, researchers from GNS Science, NIWA, and Victoria University have recently been given the green light from IODP to develop an ambitious programme of seafloor drilling to learn more about the causes of submarine earthquakes offshore eastern New Zealand.

Activities surrounding the port visit by the JOIDES Resolution are hosted by the Auckland Museum Institute, The University of Auckland, and GNS Science, with the support of IODP and the US-based Consortium for Ocean Leadership.
The JOIDES Resolution is managed by the US Implementing Organization of IODP (USIO), and funded by the US National Science Foundation. Together, Texas A&M University, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University, and the Consortium for Ocean Leadership comprise the USIO.

Schedule of events related to Auckland port call of RV JOIDES Resolution

Saturday 12 February
JOIDES Resolution arrives in Auckland (Freyberg Wharf).

Sunday 13 February – Public Lecture, Auckland Museum
17:30 - 17:35. Welcome (Chris Hollis, GNS Science, NZ IODP)
17:35 – 17:40. Introduction to IODP (Brad Clement, USIO-IODP)
17:40 - 18:00. NZ IODP Participant: Wilkes Land Expedition (Rob McKay, Victoria University of Wellington)
18:00-18:40 Louisville Seamount Trail Expedition (Anthony Koppers, Co-chief Scientist, Oregon State University)

Monday 14 February – Ship Tours
Leaders: Rob McKay (Victoria University), Bill Crawford (USIO-IODP), Kevin Kurtz (Onboard Education Officer, Louisville expedition)
09.30 – 11.30 Two simultaneous ship tours.
13.30 – 15.30 Two simultaneous tours.

Useful websites
• NZ Ocean Drilling Programme: http://drill.gns.cri.nz/nzodp/index.html
• Research vessel JOIDES Resolution: http://joidesresolution.org/
• Integrated Ocean Drilling Program: http://www.iodp.org/

ENDS

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