The Synergies between Space Agencies and Scientific Ocean Drilling: An Exciting Partnership for the 21st Century

Abstract:

The International Ocean Discovery Program community’s 2050 Science Framework (SF) builds on past successes and forges new partnerships to give a powerful and compelling new approach to executing scientific ocean drilling. A potential partnership with space agencies is outlined in the SF in areas of climate, habitability, volcanism, & impacts.

The NASA Earth Science Division focus is on the present and future climate. This is intimately aligned with the research outlined in the SF through Strategic Objectives (SO) #3 (Climate Factory), #4 (Feedbacks), and #5 (Tipping Points), as well as Flagship Initiative (FI) #1 (Future Climate Change). Combining NASA & IODP datasets allows integration of past climate records with modern climate observations to provide a new understanding of Earth’s interconnected dynamic processes & its future climate evolution.

NASA’s Planetary Science Division has as a major science focus habitability/life beyond Earth. Ocean drilling strives to understand habitability and limits of life on Earth and there are clear applications of this approach to planetary science. The SF explores microbial metabolisms through SO #1 (Habitability) and FI #5 (Life and its Origin). Through ocean drilling, the continuum from life to non-life, from organic to inorganic, and from rock to water, is examined in detail, providing insights into the limits of life.

Planetary missions return spectacular remote sensing data of impact craters. However exploring these features in 3D can only be done through seismic data and drilling on Earth. The SF highlights the study of impact craters through Enabling Element Terrestrial to Extraterrestrial. Ocean drilling provides exceptional detail into processes involved in impact crater formation by investigations that image and sample the subsurface.

Another major science question of NASA’s Planetary Science Division is how did the Solar System evolve to its current diverse state? Plume volcanism is the norm for terrestrial planetary bodies, whereas Earth is unique with plate tectonics as the main driver of heat loss. The SF FI #2 (Deep Earth) seeks to use plume volcanism and large igneous provinces (LIPs) to probe the Earth’s lower mantle to understand the interior of our planet. Through analogue studies in collaboration with ocean drilling, significant progress can be made.