Scientific deep-ocean drilling: Revealing the earth's secrets

Oilfield Review

Volumn 16, Issue 4, 2004, Pages 24-37

  Brewer, Tim ^a   Endo, Tatsuki ^b   Kamata, Masahiro ^b   Fox, Paul Jeffrey ^c   Goldberg, Dave ^d   Myers, Greg ^d   Kawamura, Yoshi ^e   Kuramoto, Shin'ichi ^e   Kittredge, Steve ^b   Mrozewski, Stefan ^b   Rack, Frank R ^f  

^a UNIVERSITY OF LEICESTER   (United Kingdom)

^b Texas A and M University ^*

^c TEXAS A AND M UNIVERSITY   (United States)

^d International Research Institute for Climate and Society   (United States)

^e JAPAN AGENCY FOR MARINE EARTH SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY   (Japan)

^f Research and Education   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

BLOWOUT PREVENTER (BOP); CIRCULATION OBVIATION RETROFIT KIT (CORK) SYSTEMS; EXPLORATION AND PRODUCTION (E&P); OCEAN DRILLING PROGRAM (ODP);

CLIMATE CHANGE; COMPUTER SOFTWARE; DATA ACQUISITION; EARTHQUAKE EFFECTS; GAS HYDRATES; OFFSHORE BOREHOLES; PRODUCTION; SEDIMENTS; TECTONICS;

OFFSHORE DRILLING;

EID: 20144368781     PISSN: 09231730     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Review

References (47)

1. Le Pichon X: "Sea-Floor Spreading and Continental Drift," Journal of Geophysical Research 73, no. 12 (June 1968): 3661-3697.
2. Kvenvolden KA and McDonald TJ: "Gas Hydrates of the Middle America Trench, Deep Sea Drilling Project Leg 84," in Von Huene R, Aubouin J, Arnott RJ, Baltuck M, Bourgois J, Filewicz M, Helm R, Lienert B, McDonald TJ, McDougall K, Ogawa Y, Taylor E and Winsborough B: Initial Reports of the Deep Sea Drilling Project 84. Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office (1985): 667-682.
3. Kleinberg LR and Brewer PG: "Probing Gas Hydrates Deposits," American Scientists 89, no. 3 (May-June 2001): 244-251.
4. Collett T, Lewis R and Uchida T: "Growing Interest in Gas Hydrates," Oilfield Review 12, no. 2 (Summer 20001:42-57.
5. Kerr RA: "Signs of a Warm, Ice-Free Arctic," Seience 305, no. 5691 (September 2004): 1693.
6. Schlumberger logs were acquired since the beginning of scientific deep-ocean drilling with Project Mohole (reference 10). Schlumberger has also been involved in onshore scientific drilling programs, leading to new technology for the oil and gas industry, for example, a new drilling technology that combined rotary drilling and sandline core retrieval techniques. For more on continental scientific drilling: Bram K, Draxler J, Hirschmann G, Zoth G, Hiron S and Kühr M: "The KTB Borehole - Germany's Superdeep Telescope into the Earth's Crust," Oilfield Review 7, no. 1 (January 1995): 4-22.
7. IODP is a global partnership of scientists, research institutions and government agencies. The US National Science Foundation (NSF) and Japan's Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) are lead members who make equal financial contributions. The balance of the funding is provided by the contributing member European Consortium for Ocean Research Drilling (ECORD), and the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST), China, an associate member.
8. Project Mohole was funded by the US National Science Foundation and the US National Academy of Sciences.
9. The Mohorovičić discontinuity is the boundary between the Earth's crust and mantle. Oceanic crustal thickness, interpreted from seismic refraction results, ranges from 3.6 to 5.5 km [11,800 to 18,045 ft].
10. Norton EE: "Preliminary Drilling Phase of Mohole Project 1, Summary of Drilling Operations," Bulletin of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists 45, no. 11 (November 19611:1789-1792.
11. DSDP was funded by the National Science Foundation and managed by the Joint Oceanographic Institutions for Deep Earth Sampling (JOIDES), a consortium of US oceanographic institutions. In 1976, the program was expanded to include other countries - France, Japan, Soviet Union, UK and West Germany.
12. Ewing M, Worzel JL, Beall AO, Berggren WA, Bukry D, Burk CA, Fischer AG and Pessagno EA Jr: Initial Reports of the Deep Sea Drilling Project, Joint Oceanographic Institutions for Deep Earth Sampling (JOIDES). University of California, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, Vol 1. (August-September 1968).
13. Farmer P, Miller D, Pieprzak A, Rutledge J and Woods R: "Exploring the Subsalt," Oilfield Review8, no. 1 (Spring 19961: 50-64.
14. The Ocean Drilling Program was managed by Joint Oceanographic Institutions, Inc. (JOI) - a consortium of US oceanographic institutions. The operation and staffing of the drillship and core retrieval from sites around the world were managed by Texas A&M University (TAMU). The Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory (LDEO) at Columbia University, New York, USA, managed the logging services and site survey data bank. The funding for ODP was initially provided by the US National Science Foundation (NSF) and later expanded to include other international partners including Australia, Belgium, Canada, China, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Korea, The Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan and UK.
15. ODP core repositories are located at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Palisades, New York, USA; Scripps Institution of Oceanography, California; Texas A&M University; and Bremen University, Germany.
16. Goldberg D: "The Role of Downhole Measurements in Marine Geology and Geophysics," Reviews of Geophysics 35, no. 3 (August 1997): 315-342.
17. Lorsignol M, Armstrong A, Rasmussen MW and Farnieras L: "Heave Compensated Wireline Logging Winch System and Method of Use," US Patent no. 6,216,789 (April 17, 2001).
18. Shipboard Scientific Party, 2000: "Leg 191 Preliminary Report: West Pacific ION Project/Hammer Drill Engineering," ODP Preliminary Report 191, http://www-odp.tamu.edu/publications/prelim/191_prel/191PREL.PDF (accessed December 10, 2004).
19. Acock A, ORourke T, Shirmboh D, Alexander J, Andersen G, Kaneko T, Venkitaraman A, López-de-Cárdenas J, Nishi M, Numasawa M, Yoshioka K, Roy A, Wilson A and Twynam A: "Practical Approaches to Sand Management," Oilfield Review16, no. 1 (Spring 2004): 10-27.
20. Goldberg D, Meltser A and the ODP Leg 191 Shipboard Scientific Party, 2001: "High Vertical Resolution Spectral Gamma Ray Logging: A New Tool Development and Field Test Results," Transactions of the SPWLA 42nd Annual Logging Symposium, Houston, June 17-20, 2001, paper JJ.
21. Goldberg, reference 16.
22. Goldberg D, Myers G, Grigar K, Pettigrew T, Mrozewski S and Shipboard Scientific Party, ODP Leg 209: "Logging-While-Coring - First Tests of a New Technology for Scientific Drilling," Petrophysics 45, no. 4 (July-August 2004): 328-334.
23. Pettigrew TL: "Design and Operation of a Wireline Pressure Core Sampler," ODP Technical Note 17. College Station, Texas: Ocean Drilling Program (1992).
24. The European HYACINTH consortium developed the hydrate autoclave coring equipment (HYACE) system. Two types of wireline pressure coring tool, a percussion tool and a rotary tool, were developed together with the means of transferring the core without loss of pressure into a laboratory chamber.
25. Tréhu AM, Bohrmann G, Rack FR, Torres ME, Delwiche ME, Dickens GR, Goldberg DS, Gràcia E, Guèrin G, Holland M, Johnson JE, Lee YJ, Liu CS, Long PE, Milkov AV, Riedel M, Schultheiss P, Su X, Teichert B, Tomaru H, Vanneste M, Watanabe M and Weinberger JL: Proceedings of the Ocean Drilling Program, Initial Report, Vol 204. http://www-odp.tamu.edu/publications/prelim/ 204_prel/204toc.html (accessed December 12, 2004).
26. Some of the wireline tools used on Leg 204 include the APS Accelerator Porosity Sonde, DSI Dipole Shear Sonic Imager, Dual-Induction Tool (DIT), Formation MicroScanner, GPIT General Purpose Inclinometry Tool, HLDT Hostile Litho-DensityTool, Hostile Environment Natural Gamma Ray Sonde (HNGS), Scintillation Gamma Ray Tool (SGT), SFL Spherically Focused Resistivity, VSI Versatile Seismic Imager and WST-3. Drilling and measurement tools were adnVISION, geoVISION, proVISION and the modified RAB-8 tool for use with the logging-while-coring system.
27. When gas hydrates disassociate from a sediment interval, cold spots can be felt with the hand and can be measured with thermal infrared cameras.
28. Kleinberg and Brewer, reference 3.
29. Dickens GR: "Rethinking the Global Carbon Cycle with a Large, Dynamic and Microbially Mediated Gas Hydrate Capacitor," Earth and Planetary Science Letters 213, no. 3 (August 25, 2003): 169-183.
30. Arroyo JL, Breton P, Dijkerman H, Dingwall S, Guerra R, Hope R, Hornby B, Williams M, Jimenez RR, Lastennet T, Tulett J, Leaney S, Lim T, Menkiti H, Puech J-C, Tcherkashnev S, Burg TT and Verliac M: "Superior Seismic Data from the Borehole," Oilfield Review 15, no. 1 (Spring 2003): 2-23.
31. Tréhu AM, Long PE, Torres ME, Bohrmann G, Rack FR, Collett TS, Goldberg DS, Milkov AV, Riedel M, Schultheiss P, Bangs NL, Barr SR, Borowski WS, Claypool GE, Delwiche ME, Dickens GR, Gràcia E, Guerin G, Holland M, Johnson JE, Lee Y-J, Liu C-S, Su X, Teichert B, Tomaru H, Vanneste M, Watanabe M and Weinberger JL: " Three-Dimensional Distribution of Gas Hydrate beneath Southern Hydrate Ridge: Constraints from ODP Leg 204," Earth and Planetary Science Letters 222, no. 3-4, (June 15, 2004): 845-862.
32. Archie's experiments established an empirical relationship between resistivity, porosity and water saturation. For more on Archie's equation: log Interpretation Principles/Applications. Houston: Schlumberger Educational Services, 1989.
33. Milkov AV, Claypool GE, Lee Y-J, Torres ME, Borowski WS, Tomaru H, Sassen R, Long PE and the ODP Leg 204 Scientific Party: "Ethane Enrichment and Propane Depletion in Subsurface Gases Indicate Gas Hydrate Occurrence in Marine Sediments at Southern Hydrate Ridge Offshore Oregon," Organic Geochemistry 35, no. 9 (September 2004): 1067-1080. Milkov AV, Claypool GE, Lee YJ, Dickens GR, Xu W, Borowski WS and the ODP Leg 204 Scientific Party, "In Situ Methane Concentrations at Hydrate Ridge Offshore Oregon: New Constraints on the Global Gas Hydrate Inventory from an Active Margin," Geology 31 (2003): 833-836.
34. Milkov AV, Claypool GE, Lee Y-J, Torres ME, Borowski WS, Tomaru H, Sassen R, Long PE and the ODP Leg 204 Scientific Party: "Ethane Enrichment and Propane Depletion in Subsurface Gases Indicate Gas Hydrate Occurrence in Marine Sediments at Southern Hydrate Ridge Offshore Oregon," Organic Geochemistry 35, no. 9 (September 2004): 1067-1080. Milkov AV, Claypool GE, Lee YJ, Dickens GR, Xu W, Borowski WS and the ODP Leg 204 Scientific Party, "In Situ Methane Concentrations at Hydrate Ridge Offshore Oregon: New Constraints on the Global Gas Hydrate Inventory from an Active Margin," Geology 31 (2003): 833-836.
35. Collett TS: "Gas Hydrates as a Future Energy Resource," Geotimes 49, no. 11 (November 2004): 24-27.
36. Beham R, Brown A, Mottershead C, Whitgift J, Cross J, Desroches L, Espeland J, Greenberg M, Haines P, Landgren K, Layrisse l, Lugo J, Moreán O, Ochoa E, O'Neill D and Sledz J: "Changing the Shape of E&P Data Management," Oilfield Review 9, no. 2 (Summer 1997): 21-33.
37. For more on the initial science plan: http://www.iodp.org/downloads/ IODP_Init_Sci_Plan.pdf (accessed September 30, 2004).
38. Coffin MF: "Expeditions to Drill Pacific, Arctic, and Atlantic Sites," American Geophysical Union, EOS Transactions 65, no. 2 (January 2004): 13-18.
39. The Joint Oceanographic Institutions (JOI), Texas A&M University, Columbia University, and Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory compose the JOI alliance. The JOI collectively provides coring, logging, laboratory outfitting, staffing, engineering, curation, data distribution and logistics for the riserless vessel. Texas A&M subcontracts the riserless vessel, and Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory subcontracts the logging services.
40. The mission-specific platforms are operated by the European Consortium for Ocean Research Drilling (ECORD), and are managed by the ECORD Science Operations (ESO), a consortium of European scientific institutions. The British Geological Survey (BGS) is responsible for the overall ESO management. The University of Bremen in Germany is contracted by BGS for curation, core repositories and data management. Logging and petrophysical activities are contracted by BGS to the European Petrophysical Consortium, comprising the University of Leicester, England; the Université de Montpellier, France; RWTH Aachen, Germany; and Vrije Universiteit of Amsterdam.
41. For more on Ocean Drilling in the 21st Century (OD21): http://www.jamstec.go.jp/jamstec-e/odinfo/iodp_top.html (accessed December 2, 2004).
42. Shipboard Scientific Party, 2004: "Juan de Fuca Hydrogeology: The Hydrogeologic Architecture of Basaltic Oceanic Crust: Compartmentalization, Anisotropy, Microbiology, and Crustal-Scale Properties on the Eastern Flank of Juan de Fuca Ridge, Eastern Pacific Ocean," IODP Preliminary Report 301, http://iodp.tamu.edu/publications/PR/301PR/301PR.PDF (accessed November 3, 2004).
43. In addition to standard wireline tools, several hostile environment tools deployed on Expedition 301 include the APS Accelerator Porosity Sonde, Hostile Environment Natural Gamma Ray Sonde (HNGS), HLDT Hostile Litho-Density Tool and SlimXtreme AIT Array Induction Imager Tool. For more on high-pressure, high-temperature logging: Baird T, Fields T, Drummond R, Mathison D, Langseth B, Martin A and Silipigno L: "High-Pressure, High-Temperature Well Logging, Perforating and Testing," Oilfield Review 10, no. 2 (Summer 1998): 50-67.
44. http://www.iodp-usio.org/Newsroom/releases/exp_301_end.html (accessed November 7, 2004).
45. Kingdon A, O'Sullivan M and Gaffney O: "Arctic Coring Expedition (ACEX) Retrieves First Arctic Core," posted on August 25, 2004, http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2004-08/sprs-ace082504.php (accessed December 10, 2004).
46. Revkin CA: "Under All That Ice, Maybe Oil," The New York Times:, posted on November 30, 2004, http://www.iodp.org/education_outreach/ press_releases/nytimes_acex_article.pdf (accessed December 10, 2004).
47. Goldberg et al, reference 22.