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doi:10.2204/iodp.pr.320T.2009

Introduction and background

The revitalized and modernized R/V JOIDES Resolution left Singapore for sea trials and assessment of readiness on 25 January 2009 after extensive reconstruction over the last 2.5 years. This reconstruction project, known as United States Implementing Organization (USIO) Scientific Ocean Drilling Vessel (SODV), was funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) Major Research Equipment and Facilities Construction (MREFC) account. Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP) Expedition 320T marks the final phase of SODV before rejoining IODP-USIO and full international science operations.

The SODV construction project replaced nearly everything inside the hull on the ship from the derrick forward, including all new laboratories, accommodations, and bridge. Other vessel and drilling systems throughout the JOIDES Resolution were also overhauled and refurbished, notably the top drive and passive heave systems and the propeller shafts, screws, and thrusters. Downhole logging operations were completely made over as well, including a new wireline heave compensator (WHC) and support systems. In tandem with construction work in Singapore was complete redesign of all the science laboratories with many new and redesigned analytical systems, as well as extensive new software, databases, and information technology (IT) infrastructure.

In order to gauge the overall readiness of the research vessel prior to the beginning of Expedition 320 in March 2009 in Honolulu, Hawaii, the USIO planned a ~6 week transit expedition. During this transit expedition, Expedition 320T, the ship covered almost 6000 nmi in its voyage from Singapore to Honolulu (Fig. F1). The transit included a stopover in Guam to pick up additional technical staff and a group of seven scientists that served as an external Readiness Assessment Team (RAT). A U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) inspection was also carried out in Guam. Sea trials were conducted at Ontong Java Plateau during transit to Honolulu.

Objectives

Expedition 320T was planned to achieve several important goals including testing the operational readiness, the drilling and coring systems, and the performance of the new WHC and logging tools at sea. Given that the ship and vital systems were operational, an additional goal of the transit expedition was to assess the overall readiness of the science systems, accommodations, and IT system for carrying out full IODP expeditions.

To accomplish all these goals during the transit, Ocean Drilling Program (ODP) Site 807, on the Ontong Java Plateau at ~2800 m water depth, was chosen as a location to revisit and test drilling, coring, and logging systems. A key element in choosing Site 807 was the existence of a reentry cone in Hole 807C, a 1500 m hole into basement that would potentially be a safe and appropriate location for testing not only the WHC and tool responses but also the ship's dynamic positioning (DP) system, Global Positioning System (GPS), vibration isolated television (VIT) camera frame, beacons, and thrusters. Although not the key objective of testing drilling systems, the collection of new cores and testing of some new downhole tools while drilling at a new site (U1330) would provide the assessment team an opportunity to evaluate almost all the science and IT systems. This fresh core material also allowed for new rig floor crew and technical staff to organize collecting, curating, and evaluating core flow through the new laboratories.

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