2020-2024 Provision of log data reduction and database services for scientific ocean drilling

Part 1:

In the previous Integrated Ocean Drilling Program, NSF supported operation of the U.S. drillship JOIDES Resolution (JR) through a contract to the Consortium for Ocean Leadership (COL). COL, as prime contractor, oversaw subcontracts to Texas A&M University (as 'Prime Contractor' for operating the JR) and Columbia University (as 'Logging Contractor'). The Borehole Research Group (BRG), under PI Goldberg, provided downhole logging services that included management of the logging subcontractor Schlumberger as well as logging data reduction and quality control, and management of the IODP logging database. These logging services are primarily geophysical measurements done remotely in the drilled borehole, such as borehole wall rock or sediment (formation) resistivity, geochemistry, seismic properties, or magnetic properties.

In the current International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP), a new NSF Cooperative Agreement to Texas A&M University as JOIDES Resolution Science Operator (JRSO) replaced the contract for FY2015. At the time of this award, it was recognized that a need existed to maintain the IODP logging database and the data reduction and quality control activities provided under the previous logging subcontract, activities that the JRSO at award could not easily or inexpensively provide. Thus, NSF made previous 3 year awards to the PI to provide these services in FY 2015-2017 and FY 2018-2020, an arrangement that has worked very well with no issues identified during review by independent NSF panels examining JR facility operations performance in FY2015, 2016, 2017, and 2019. An NSF panel examined JR facility operations fo FY2018 and further identified no performance issues.

This award represents a new award to the PI to continue to provide these shipboard downhole logging data services, including data reduction, quality control, support of a user-accessible database containing these logging data, and archiving of the data in easily retrievable form in an international database and in a deep archive supported by there U.S. Government. This award will support these services for four additional years, through the end of the IODP.

Part 2:

The award will provide support for four years of the following services:

1) Rapid data reduction and quality control of logging data acquired aboard JOIDES Resolution drillship International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP) Expeditions by the logging subcontractor Schlumberger, with subsequent return of the reduced data in near real-time to the Expedition Science Party aboard the drillship;

2) Archiving of raw and reduced logging data within the existing IODP logging database LogDB housed at Columbia University;

3) Storing the logging data following FAIR (findable-accessible-interoperable-reusable) criteria in the CERN-supported international data base, publishing Digital Object Identifiers (DOI's) for each well log dataset;

4) Maintain and enhance web services for automated query and retrieval of data from LogDB;

5) Submit full sets of raw and processed data for deep archiving to the National Centers for Environmental Information; and

6) Provide support for LogDB users, especially neophytes.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.