June 2009

The JR is currently steaming for San Diego, where it will let off its PEAT 2 science party and pick up an excited crew of educators for the fourth annual School of Rock workshop: Cores, CORKS and Hydrology on the Juan de Fuca Ridge.

Hailing from around the country and the world, these 15 teachers will explore JR science for the next two weeks as they sail up to Victoria.

From Victoria, the ship sets sail for the Bering Sea expedition, from 4 July to 4 Septembe, when it will dock in Yokohama, Japan.

Water covers more than 70 percent of Earth’s surface. Geoscientists explore the oceans to better understand Earth’s fundamental processes.

Earth’s surface constantly changes and evolves. Drilling into oceanic crust allows scientists to learn more about forces such as volcanoes and earthquakes, which affect millions of people. They also investigate other changes in Earth surface such as ocean crust formation and destruction, mountain building, and the movement of tectonic plates.

Earth’s sea level constantly fluctuates in response to climatic and tectonic forces. Scientists examine sediments and rocks recovered from drill sites in the ocean to develop models of the ocean’s history. These models, in turn, can help countries manage coastal zones.

Sediments found beneath the ocean floor are in part composed of skeletal remains of plants and animals. By studying them, scientists learn more about what organisms lived on our planet at different times in Earth’s past and what those organisms can tell us about the climate at those times.

Name: Leslie Peart

Education: Director, IODP’s Deep Earth Academy, Washington, DC

PNN Special Report: "Core on the Floor"

APC (that’s Advanced Piston Coring) Record

In case you really haven’t heard the news, please join us in congratulating the operations and drilling staff, the scientists, techs, and crew of Expedition 321 Pacific Equatorial Age Transect 2, for setting the new program record for advanced piston coring!

Here are their reports, photos, and quotes of the day.

Deep Earth Academy Shares Scientific Ocean Drilling at World Ocean Day

Piscataway Teacher to Explore the Earth’s Core

Microfossils: The Ocean’s Storytellers Poster Microfossils are microscopic single-celled organisms that belong to the Kingdom Protista (or Protoctista). Examples include calcareous nannofossils, foraminifera, diatoms, radiolarians, and silicoflagellates; planktonic organisms that inhabit the sunlit surface waters of the world ocean. The tiny shells of microfossils are the sediments that cover vast areas of the seafloor.
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How much of the underwater world remains unexplored:

a. 24%
b. 95%
c. 59%

Science Question:

The ocean floor is:

a. Completely mapped
b. Shrinking rapidly
c. Largely unexplored
d. Providing new evidence of climate change
e. Answers C & D