Indian IODP participants meet at NCAOR

Report on the Indian IODP Participants Meet

January 14-15, 2013

NCAOR Goa 

Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP) is an international endeavor which brings together scientists from different countries and disciplines to accomplish deep sea research by monitoring, drilling, sampling, and analyzing sub-seafloor environments. Ministry of Earth Science (MoES), Government of India, joined the IODP as an associate member in 2009 through an MOU with NSF, USA and MEXT, Japan. Since then, NCAOR, Goa has been designated as the nodal agency for all the IODP related activities in India.

Subsequently, a detailed Science Plan was developed by IODP-India which highlights prominent scientific issues from the Indian Ocean sector which require deep ocean drilling. As a follow up event, an international workshop was organized in Goa (Oct, 2011) to debate on challenges in scientific drilling in the Indian Ocean region. A scientific proposal for drilling in the Arabian Sea entitled “Deep sea drilling in the Arabian Sea: Discovering the tectono-climatic unknowns” was developed and submitted to IODP-MI. This proposal primarily aims to recover deep sea cores from the Arabian Sea to determine high resolution climate records and to reconstruct the erosion response of the Western Himalaya.

One of the significant aspects of the IODP association is participation of Indian scientists onboard IODP drilling platforms to get hands-on experience. The onboard experience of these young Indian scientists is an asset towards core capacity building in ocean drilling. In order to translate this experience in terms of high quality geo-scientific research, IODP-India organized a two day brainstorming meet of all the Indian IODP participants on January 14-15, 2013 at NCAOR Goa.

The meeting was inaugurated by eminent geoscientist Prof. V. K Gaur and attended by several distinguished geoscientists of the country as well as the National IODP Committee members. Interactive technical discussions among the attendees were facilitated through four different sessions- Environmental processes, Geochemistry, Geophysics and Deep Biosphere.

Detailed deliberations were made by the participants of the following IODP expeditions:

During the meeting, comprehensive presentation was made on the Indian IODP proposal in the Arabian Sea to decipher tectono-climatic linkages. Possible roles of Indian IODP participants in the Arabian Sea drilling proposal was explored through discussions. It was unanimously agreed that a core competence should be developed to deal with post-cruise science plan of the Indian IODP proposal in the Arabian Sea. Scientists attending the meet expressed their excitement towards the Indian IODP activities and requested IODP-India for continued association in future in this international endeavor. Further, participants suggested to form few theme based sub groups to chalk out prospective scientific drilling proposals emanating from Indian Ocean sector.

The meeting concluded with thanks to the Chair and the participants.

Program Details:

Date: 14-01-2013

09.30 AM – 10:00 AM Inaugural session

10.00 AM – 10:30 AM Invited lecture by Prof. V K Gaur (Structure of Bay of Bengal)

10.30 AM – 11.00 AM Vote of Thanks & Tea Break

Expedition Presentations:

Session 1: (Moderators: Prof. A C Narayana & Dr. Thamban Meloth)

11.00 AM – 11:30 AM Indian proposal for drilling in the Arabian Sea (D K Pandey)

11.30 AM -13.30 PM Presentation on IODP expeditions (338, 339, 341 and 342)

13.30 PM - 14.30 PM Lunch Break (at NCAOR, Goa)

Session 2: (Moderators: Prof. A K Singhvi & Dr. Rahul Mohan)

14.30 PM - 15.30 PM Presentation on IODP expeditions (325, 346, 322* and 347)

15.30 PM -16.00 PM Tea Break

16.00 PM - 16.30 PM Invited talk by Prof. I B Singh

16.30 PM - 17.00 PM Invited talk by Prof. A C Narayana

Date: 15-01-2013

Session 3: (Moderators: Dr. K S Krishna & Dr. Dhananjai Pandey)

10.00 AM - 11.30 AM Presentation on IODP expeditions (321, 323*, 334 and 343)

11.30 AM -12.00 AM Tea Break

Session 4: (Moderators: Prof. I B Singh & Dr. K P Krishnan) 

12.00 AM -13.30 PM Presentation on IODP expeditions (318, 335, 340, 345* and 336)

13.30 PM – 14.30 PM Lunch Break

14.30 PM – 16.00 PM Interactive session towards further collaborations

16.00 PM -16.30 PM Tea Break

16.30 PM – 17.00 PM Concluding session

Indian IODP participants meet at NCAOR