Deep Sea Drilling Program - History

History

The initial contract between the National Science Foundation (NSF) and The Regents, University of California was signed on June 24, 1966. This contract initiated the first phase the DSDP, which was based in Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego. Global Marine, Inc. conducted the drilling operations. The Levingston Shipbuilding Company laid the keel of the Glomar Challenger on October 18, 1967, in Orange, Texas. It sailed down the Sabine River to the Gulf of Mexico, and after a period of testing, DSDP accepted the ship on August 11, 1968.

Through contracts with Joint Oceanographic Institutions (JOI), NSF supported the scientific advisory structure for the project and funded pre-drilling geophysical site surveys. Scientific planning was conducted under the auspices of the Joint Oceanographic Institutions for Deep Earth Sampling (JOIDES). The JOIDES advisory group consisted of 250 distinguished scientists from academic institutions, government agencies, and private industry from all over the world. Over the next 30 months, the second phase consisted of drilling and coring in the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Ocean as well as the Mediterranean and Red Sea. Technical and scientific reports followed during the period. The second phase of DSDP ended on August 11, 1972.

The success of the Glomar Challenger was almost immediate. On one of the sites with a water depth of 1,067 m (3,500 ft), core samples revealed the existence of salt domes. Oil companies received samples after an agreement to publish their analysis. The potential of oil beneath deep ocean salt domes remains an important avenue for commercial development today.

As for the purpose of the scientific exploration, one of the most important discoveries was made when the crew drilled 17 holes at 10 different locations along an oceanic ridge between South America and Africa. The retrieved core samples provided strong proof for continental drift and seafloor renewal at rift zones. This confirmation of Alfred Wegener's theory of continental drift strengthened the proposal of a single, ancient land mass, which is called Pangaea. The samples gave further evidence to support the plate tectonics theory, which at the time attempted to explain the formation of mountain ranges, earthquakes, and oceanic trenches. Another discovery was how youthful the ocean floor is in comparison to Earth's geologic history. After analysis of samples, scientists concluded that the ocean floor is probably no older than 200 million years. This is in comparison with the 4.5 billion-year age of the Earth.

The International Phase of Ocean Drilling (IPOD) began in 1975 with the Federal Republic of Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, and France joining the United States in field work aboard the Glomar Challenger and in post-cruise scientific research. The Glomar Challenger docked for the last time with DSDP in November 1983. Parts of the ship, such as its dynamic positioning system, engine telegraph, and thruster console, are stored at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. With the advent of larger and more advanced drilling ships, the JOIDES Resolution replaced the Glomar Challenger in January 1985. The new program, called the Ocean Drilling Program (ODP), continued exploration from 1985 to 2003, at which point it was replaced by the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP).