JOIDES Resolution

The laboratory space includes 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 is 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 contains 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 are also provided.

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. Since initial deployment in 2013, the HLAPC has 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 has proven 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 has 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.

JOIDES Resolution is managed and operated by the JRSO, which is based at TAMU. TAMU has been science operator to JOIDES Resolution since 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 present.[2][3] In October 2014, the JOIDES Resolution Science Operator was formalized as the implementing organization for IODP.[4][5] JRSO responsibilities include 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 are 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 are addressed by drilling expeditions that result from peer-reviewed proposals that are evaluated by the Science Evaluation Panel and an external review committee. The highest priority proposals are forwarded to the JOIDES Resolution Facility Board (JRFB), which then works with the JRSO to set an expedition schedule that most efficiently and effectively achieves the proposals’ objectives. The JRFB and NSF review and approve the JRSO Annual Program Plans, which comprise tasks and budget requests in support of the scheduled expeditions.

The JRSO and the JRFB have worked together to set a regional ship track, communicating to the science community the planned areas for JOIDES Resolution operations in future years. As a result of this regional planning, JOIDES Resolution has been 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 address 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 form virtual missions that make it possible to address science questions that are beyond the scope of an individual expedition.

In March of 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 is scheduled to conclude in August 2024, after which the ship will begin a demobilization period in Amsterdam.