You never really think too much about time unless you are late, planning an event, or even setting your alarm clock. It generally is understood that it exists and we, as a society, keep track of it through clocks, watches, conversations, and agendas. When you get accepted to sail on the JOIDES Resolution, you understand that you are going to work 12 hours under the time zone the ship is chosen to follow. However, time starts to become more and more relative the longer you are on the ship. The first moment where you notice that the way you interact with time is different to the way you interact ..read more

“Turns out soda cans and core liners have the same diameter” That was the start of a very interesting, but useful DIY experiment out here on the Tyrrhenian Sea. Watch the movie to see the process of testing the soda can meter and/or read below for a quick summary. Clay Furman is the Schlumberger Logging Engineer in charge of helping the science crew with downhole logging. When the borehole is finished being drilled for core collection, scientists will want to take measurements of the actual cored geological formations in the borehole. They can correlate that data to the data collected in the ..read more

Thin sections are hair thin slices of hard rock used to understand the grain size, types of minerals, types of stress applied to the rock and more. It is a microscopic tool as petrologists investigate the hard rock cores pulled from the seafloor. The petrologists use a specialized microscope with two different lights sources, a rotating slide base, and high magnification lenses to see these small characteristics. The different light sources are known as transmitted uncrossed polarized or transmitted crossed polarized. The uncrossed polarization shoots a light through a polarizer (type of filte ..read more

Thin sections are hair thin slices of hard rock used to understand the grain size, types of minerals, types of stress applied to the rock and more. It is a microscopic tool as petrologists investigate the hard rock cores pulled from the seafloor. The petrologists use a specialized microscope with two different lights sources, a rotating slide base, and high magnification lenses to see these small characteristics. The different light sources are known as transmitted uncrossed polarized or transmitted crossed polarized. The uncrossed polarization shoots a light through a polarizer (type of filte ..read more

X ray imaging used to be run through the X Ray Image Logger where the whole round and section half cores would be run through the logger in one orientation. The result was a 2-d radiograph of any internal structures. However, the JR recently switched over to the X-Ray Linescan Image Logger (XSCAN). The bonus features is that it can not only produce high resolution images of the whole round and section half cores, but it can rotate 180 degrees around the core imaging the internal structures at multiple angles. This then allows us to see the internal structures or debris or features from more th ..read more

X ray imaging used to be run through the X Ray Image Logger where the whole round and section half cores would be run through the logger in one orientation. The result was a 2-d radiograph of any internal structures. However, the JR recently switched over to the X-Ray Linescan Image Logger (XSCAN). The bonus features is that it can not only produce high resolution images of the whole round and section half cores, but it can rotate 180 degrees around the core imaging the internal structures at multiple angles. This then allows us to see the internal structures or debris or features from more th ..read more

I have had the privilege to sail twice on the JOIDES Resolution, with this being my second cruise, Expedition 402 Tyrrhenian Continent-Ocean Transition. The first time was with Expedition 393: South Atlantic Transect II. We aimed to study the age of the oceanic crust as we moved away from the mid-Atlantic ridge toward South America. You can see the expedition summary here. Tessa Peixoto on steel beach in front of a sunrise during Expedition 393 At the time I had very little understanding of rocks and sediment besides what my oceanography class in college provided me. Most of my academic career ..read more

Ahoy there, landlubbers and salty sea dogs alike! Let me spin you a yarn about a peculiar treasure found aboard the vessels that brave the briny deep – the wondrous world of sailor’s pet pics! Picture this: you’re on a ship, surrounded by nothing but the endless expanse of the ocean. It’s just you, your shipmates, and a bunch of sediment ready to be analyzed. But wait! What’s that on the wall? It’s not a map of buried treasure or a portrait of a fearsome pirate. No, it’s something far more precious – it’s a photograph of a sailor’s furry first mate! You see, sailors and scientists alike have a ..read more

By Rachel Flecker, Co-Chief Expedition 401 Tomorrow, after two months at sea aboard the JOIDES Resolution, Expedition 401 comes to an end as we dock in the port of Naples, Italy. Our expedition was all about the connection between the Atlantic and Mediterranean 8-4 million years ago. We know changes to this gateway profoundly changed the Mediterranean. The question is, did those changes also impact the Atlantic and what happened in the gateway itself? Today the Gibraltar Strait is the Mediterranean-Atlantic gateway, but in the past there were at least two other connections: one to the south in ..read more

Each JOIDES Resolution expedition studies many different features of the rock cores that it pulls up with a different scientific goal in mind. Aboard Expedition 401, we’ve recruited the scientists themselves to take on the challenge of explaining the expedition’s science and their research in 60 seconds. What is Expedition 401 searching for? First, get an overview of the scientific objectives of Expedition 401 from our onboard outreach officer Erin Winick Anthony.   View this post on Instagram   A post shared by JOIDES Resolution (@joides_resolution) How can pollen help us unders ..read more