GLOBAL CONTINENTAL SCIENTIFIC DRILLING AND THE CONTINENTAL DYNAMICS PROGRAM

For almost two decades, continental scientific drilling projects have been going on at sites around world that have addressed a broad spectrum of scientific problems – from utilizing drilling to address key questions involving active faulting, volcanism and hydrothermal systems to using drilling for sampling Quaternary sediments for high resolution climate studies, Archean rocks that preserve evidence of early life and ancient impacts that record sometimes cataclysmic events in Earth history. The National Science Foundation's Continental Dynamics Program made much of this possible in four important ways. First, in collaboration with the U.S. Geological Survey and U.S. Department of Energy, it helped lead national continental scientific drilling efforts through the Interagency Coordinating Committee on Continental Drilling. These efforts marked an almost unparalleled era of interagency cooperation in multidisciplinary Earth science. Second, through it's sponsorship of DOSECC, a U.S. program to carry out multidisciplinary drilling projects, there exists now the capability to carry out projects as diverse as coring continuous samples of young muds in lake beds to coring lavas recording the history of the Hawaiian plume. Third, through it's participation in the highly successful International Continental Drilling Program, it is now possible for Earth scientists from many different countries to carry out a wide diversity of projects at sites of unique global importance. Fourth, through its support of individual U.S. scientists to allow them to participate in scientific drilling projects that, in many cases, have been led by other countries. In this talk, I will briefly review a number of the highlights of the accomplishments of some past continental scientific drilling projects as well as provide a few brief prospects of future activities.