While ocean drilling has defined the Earth’s historical record with great success, the legacy of drilling, boreholes that remain after cores have been collected, promise to provide singular observatories from which to study the nature of the Earth’s interior and the active processes that control the fluxes of heat, fluid, and chemical species across the sea floor. Despite the fundamental nature of the science addressed, previous efforts by the U.S. science community to establish post-drilling, borehole-related observatories have been individual and largely uncoordinated. The meeting participants proposed formation of BOREHOLE (BOREHole Observatories, Laboratories, and Experiments), an organization to facilitate borehole-related, sub-seafloor science.The BOREHOLE program would provide coordination, management, and planning for a strategic initiative to advance understanding of sub-seafloor processes.

Workshop Report (pdf)

Organizing Committee

Bobb Carson, Lehigh University
Keir Becker, University of Miami
Michael Purdy, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institutions
Joris Gieskes, Scripps Institutions of Oceanography
John Hildebrand, University of California, San Diego