Background
Geoscience today, with their ability to decipher and understand the Earth system, play a key role to answering fundamental questions related to the evolution of the Earth-Life system, the processes that generate geohazards, access to sustainable resources essential for modern society, and past and present climate change. Scientific drilling is an integral component of these efforts, thanks to its unique capability to provide exact, fundamental, and globally significant knowledge of the structure, composition, and processes of the Earth’s subsurface, being the only method that allows for the extraction of undisturbed rock samples, as well as the possibility for geophysical measurements and monitoring of the subsurface under in-situ conditions.
Continental scientific drilling projects, funded and supported by, for example, the International Continental Scientific Drilling Program (ICDP), investigate the thermal evolution of Earth, the onset of plate tectonics, the generation of the magnetic field, the origin and evolution of life, the effects of large impact events, the formation of the world’s most significant ore deposits, the evolution and oxygenation of our atmosphere and oceans, past climates, global glaciations, mass extinctions that led to the modern Earth, and perform in-situ monitoring and probing of volcanoes and fault zones.
Drilling as a tool is costly, and research based on drilling should be most achievable through large-scale international projects. Moreover, although it is the ultimate method to retrieve matter from and yield information about the Earth’s interior, drilling is unfortunately not a topic at most Earth science faculties of universities worldwide. Our research group offers scientists with a verified need for the use of scientific drilling to address scientifically significant questions of high social relevance the necessary expertise, infrastructure, equipment, and training to implement their projects.
Research Question:
How to support scientists with a critical need for deep continental drilling by providing the know-how, services, training, and infrastructure to implement a drilling project?
ICDP | International Continental Scientific Drilling Program
GESEP | Deutsches Forschungsbohrkonsortium
