Deep Sea Drilling Project
DSDP provided crucial data to support the seafloor spreading hypothesis and helped to prove the theory of plate tectonics.
This contract initiated the first phase of the DSDP, which was based in Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego.
[1] Through contracts with Joint Oceanographic Institutions (JOI), NSF supported the scientific advisory structure for the project and funded pre-drilling geophysical site surveys.
The JOIDES advisory group consisted of 250 distinguished scientists from academic institutions, government agencies, and private industry from all over the world.
Over the next 30 months, the second phase consisted of drilling and coring in the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Ocean as well as the Mediterranean and Red Sea.
The potential of oil beneath deep ocean salt domes remains an important avenue for commercial development today.
[4][1] As for the purpose of the scientific exploration, one of the most important discoveries was made when the crew drilled 17 holes at 10 different locations along an oceanic ridge between South America and Africa.
The retrieved core samples provided strong proof for continental drift and seafloor renewal at rift zones.
[5] This confirmation of Alfred Wegener's theory of continental drift strengthened the proposal of a single, ancient land mass, which is called Pangaea.
The samples gave further evidence to support the plate tectonics theory, which at the time attempted to explain the formation of mountain ranges, earthquakes, and oceanic trenches.
[9] Geophysical and geochemical measurements were made during and after drilling, and occasionally long-term seismic monitoring devices were installed in the holes.
Another technological advance involved the introduction of the hydraulic piston corer (HPC[10]) in 1979, which permitted the recovery of virtually undisturbed cores of sediment.
It should be pointed out that there are factors influencing the distribution of ice-rafted debris, such as ocean currents, and sea water near surface temperatures.
[32][33] Micropaleontologic data from deep sea sediments around the Antarctic continental margin indicate that since at least the late Oligocene-early Miocene, surface waters were relatively cool.
This surface water temperature appears to indicate that Antarctic ice sheet probable at this time already reached to the coast.
