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After I read this:
https://www.welovecostarica.com/public/3043.cfm
I couldn’t pass without comment. The overall projects and cruises conducted by the DSDP {deep sea drilling project; started in the early 1970s] and it successors, now characterized by the cruises of the JOIDES Resolution, have done more for our understanding of the geological nature of the planet than any other multinational project in history. To IMPLY that because Transocean may have had a significant role in funding the Joides Resolution, they might therefore be directing the research goals of these cruises is not only paranoid, but wrong, wrong, wrong. These cruises and the research conducted on them is a result of many requests and proposals made by scientists to the National Science Foundation, the organization co-ordinating both participants and locations for drilling. Further, to IMPLY that, because there is a line in NSF’s charter that national security research “…to secure the national defense…” is under the NSF umbrella, therefore there is something sinister going on, is likewise P&WWW. Of course NSF does not have Costa Rican national security as a goal – it is after all a USA organization, not a Tico one – for that there is CONICIT. That quote was part of the NSF charter from the initial setup by Congress in the 1950s, in the height of the cold war.
Scott’s quotes are selectively picked from here: http://joidesresolution.org/node/49
which also has considerable other information about the program and its goals, as well as an invitation to visit the ship while it is in port. If one took the time to examine the locations of where the JR is drilling, it would be pretty obvious that in the last 20 years, almost never is there a chance that any petroleum deposits could be hidden where the cores are collected (and of course, cruise 335 is just another example).
Cruise 335, which Scott is suspicious of, has a good chance of providing very useful information on the causes, frequencies, and severity of earthquakes in the Pacific, west of Costa Rica, and has a top team of international scientists as part of the research party. Details are here: http://joidesresolution.org/node/1745A blog about the previous cruise, just ended in Puntarenas, is here: http://joidesresolution.org/blog
General information on the Joides Resolution is here:
http://joidesresolution.org/node/4As with other NSF-funded projects, the results are in the public domain; the only exception of which I am aware is the two secret DSDP cruises several decades ago to recover a sunken Soviet nuclear submarine in the deep Pacific. Unfortunately these implications about the Joides Reslution fuel the suspicions of the general public about ANY scientific research, simply because of a lack of understanding.
Partial fault lies with scientists: better communication with the public in easier to understand language would go a long way in avoiding this sort of misguided implication.
PEHCorporations have only one mandate; profit. Governments have only one goal; consolidation of power. They have no other. To assume otherwise is not only naive, it is dangerous.
There seems to be some confusion about the involvement of Transocean in the Gulf oil spill.
The spill occurred due to a lack of oversight by the U.S. Departmant of Minerals Management Service, poor performance and shortcutting by British Petroleum and it’s crew and improper cementing of the bore hole.
Transocean simply owned the drill rig and leased it to BP for the Macondo prospect.
[quote=”sprite”]Corporations have only one mandate; profit. Governments have only one goal; consolidation of power. They have no other. To assume otherwise is not only naive, it is dangerous.[/quote]
You are quite right.
Scott, you are a very smart and good guy who is right almost all of the time. But Pharg is right on target here. Well done Pharg! I was the first strategic planner for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in the U.S. I saw things that would make your hair curl (Do Scots have curly hair by nature?) about what goes on in the science side of the U.S. government. Of all of the big science adventures of the U.S. Government, the Deepsea Drilling Project (various aka´s along the way)is by far one the most successful and exemplary models of how to do big science (big budgets, many participants) that the entire global scientific community can learn from. We should salute this, not denigrate it. Despite BP´s well deserved bad PR of late, it has some of the smartest marine geologists in the world on its payroll. A small footnote in Costa Rica marine science history is warranted. Dick Fleming, coauthor of the first and most famous textbook on oceanography (“The Oceans”, Prentice Scott, 1942) did his research on the chemistry of the seabed in the Gulf of Nicoya while aboard the U.S. Navy collier (coal ship) Hannibal during the early 1930s. I am sure that somebody will ask what was the U.S.S. Hannibal doing in the Gulf of Nicoya during the 1930s, but I am am glad that Dick Fleming was there. Peace. DC Bob
[quote=”pharg”]After I read this:
https://www.welovecostarica.com/public/3043.cfm
I couldn’t pass without comment. The overall projects and cruises conducted by the DSDP {deep sea drilling project; started in the early 1970s] and it successors, now characterized by the cruises of the JOIDES Resolution, have done more for our understanding of the geological nature of the planet than any other multinational project in history. To IMPLY that because Transocean may have had a significant role in funding the Joides Resolution, they might therefore be directing the research goals of these cruises is not only paranoid, but wrong, wrong, wrong. These cruises and the research conducted on them is a result of many requests and proposals made by scientists to the National Science Foundation, the organization co-ordinating both participants and locations for drilling. Further, to IMPLY that, because there is a line in NSF’s charter that national security research “…to secure the national defense…” is under the NSF umbrella, therefore there is something sinister going on, is likewise P&WWW. Of course NSF does not have Costa Rican national security as a goal – it is after all a USA organization, not a Tico one – for that there is CONICIT. That quote was part of the NSF charter from the initial setup by Congress in the 1950s, in the height of the cold war.
Scott’s quotes are selectively picked from here: http://joidesresolution.org/node/49
which also has considerable other information about the program and its goals, as well as an invitation to visit the ship while it is in port. If one took the time to examine the locations of where the JR is drilling, it would be pretty obvious that in the last 20 years, almost never is there a chance that any petroleum deposits could be hidden where the cores are collected (and of course, cruise 335 is just another example).
Cruise 335, which Scott is suspicious of, has a good chance of providing very useful information on the causes, frequencies, and severity of earthquakes in the Pacific, west of Costa Rica, and has a top team of international scientists as part of the research party. Details are here: http://joidesresolution.org/node/1745A blog about the previous cruise, just ended in Puntarenas, is here: http://joidesresolution.org/blog
General information on the Joides Resolution is here:
http://joidesresolution.org/node/4As with other NSF-funded projects, the results are in the public domain; the only exception of which I am aware is the two secret DSDP cruises several decades ago to recover a sunken Soviet nuclear submarine in the deep Pacific. Unfortunately these implications about the Joides Reslution fuel the suspicions of the general public about ANY scientific research, simply because of a lack of understanding.
Partial fault lies with scientists: better communication with the public in easier to understand language would go a long way in avoiding this sort of misguided implication.
PEH[/quote]That some good science and information resulted from such drilling projects is ancillary to the greater harm done to the environment by the avaricious pursuit of oil.
After all, the many wars we have let plague us over the centuries have also yielded some advances in medicine, food preservation and other matters. But those advances do not justify the wars that pulled them into light.
As a matter of course, I never ever trust corporations, banks or governments in anything they do or say precisely because I know what their objectives always, always are.
So if you all agree that corporations do indeed only have one mandate; profit, it would therefore be safe for you to assume that the owners of the JOIDES Resolution ship, Transocean which is “the world’s largest offshore drilling contractor, provides the most versatile fleet of mobile offshore drilling units to help customers find and develop oil and natural gas reserves” and DSND Shipping, AS “an underwater contracting business that specializes in the development of underwater installations and oil well maintenance” also have that same mandate but, on this particularly unique occasion they are simply lending their 143M long ship for these experiments and are they expecting absolutely nothing in return, would that be correct?
if they are a publicly traded corp they are doing everything in the name of profit for their shareholders. frankly, i don’t believe one word of it, and i think you are correct, as is anyone who questions their real motives.
Scott: I hear you about why large energy companies do what they do. In the late 1990s the venerable Heinz Foundation for Science and the Environment courted ENRON because they were so “environmentally forward thinking and responsible”. The National Science Foundation funded JOIDES has industrial participation because everybody (read big business) benefits from increased knowledge about how the Earth works. Information is shared openly from this project. Oil Companies then do their own additional higher resolution scientific surveys to find what they are looking for and it is highly proprietary. The irony of ironies and joke of all jokes is that if the academic scientists are allegedly part of some secret cabal to benefit oil companies, then they are so disorganized and prone to anarchy and internecine fist fights that they would screw it up and it would be on the front page of the New York Times. The anaolgy with genetic research is that the industrial DNA mongers have a legitimate interest in helping to fund better basic understanding of how genetic processes work before they zero in on their dirty, profit driven deeds. The bottom line is that Costa Rica has its own tectonic plate (Cocos) that will continue to do mischief with the earth´s surface in Central America and Ticos might want to know and understand that.
[quote=”Scott”]So if you all agree that corporations do indeed only have one mandate; profit, it would therefore be safe for you to assume that the owners of the JOIDES Resolution ship, Transocean which is “the world’s largest offshore drilling contractor, provides the most versatile fleet of mobile offshore drilling units to help customers find and develop oil and natural gas reserves” and DSND Shipping, AS “an underwater contracting business that specializes in the development of underwater installations and oil well maintenance” also have that same mandate but, on this particularly unique occasion they are simply lending their 143M long ship for these experiments and are they expecting absolutely nothing in return, would that be correct?[/quote]
[quote=”sprite”]That some good science and information resulted from such drilling projects is ancillary to the greater harm done to the environment by the avaricious pursuit of oil. [/quote]
The many geological scientists that I know would be amazed and astounded to learn that people think their research is part of an avaricious pursuit of oil.
and…….
[quote=”scott”] on this particularly unique occasion they are simply lending their 143M long ship for these experiments and are they expecting absolutely nothing in return, would that be correct? [/quote]no and yes. NO, this is not a ‘particularly unique occasion’; this is cruise #335 and, though I cannot give the exact number, I believe less than 5% were conducted anywhere near potential petroleum deposits, going back to the early 70s. Over 90% dealt with understanding ocean sediments and plate tectonics And NO, Transocean is not ‘lending their ship’. The operation and scheduling is entirely driven by NSF’s response to science ideas and proposals. And finally, YES, the scientists are expecting nothing in return, except contributing to the global knowledge base, getting some publications, and perhaps even tenure. Been there, done that.
PEHThe entire process of deciding what to drill for, where and when in terms of scientific questions to be answered is so open and exhaustive in DSDP that it would be hard to sneak a hidden oil industry agenda in the drilling operations in the more than 3 decades of this program´s success. Lifting the published reports of DSDP scientific findings would give Arnold Schwarzenegger a hernia. In fact, most of the locations and questions that guided DSDP drilling operations have been in areas that are deliberately not likely oil bearing formations. NSF PR people are not keen on even small oil discharges. Who cares? Ask the Japanese about subduction zones in their Northeast.
[quote=”pharg”][quote=”sprite”]That some good science and information resulted from such drilling projects is ancillary to the greater harm done to the environment by the avaricious pursuit of oil. [/quote]
The many geological scientists that I know would be amazed and astounded to learn that people think their research is part of an avaricious pursuit of oil.
and…….
[quote=”scott”] on this particularly unique occasion they are simply lending their 143M long ship for these experiments and are they expecting absolutely nothing in return, would that be correct? [/quote]no and yes. NO, this is not a ‘particularly unique occasion’; this is cruise #335 and, though I cannot give the exact number, I believe less than 5% were conducted anywhere near potential petroleum deposits, going back to the early 70s. Over 90% dealt with understanding ocean sediments and plate tectonics And NO, Transocean is not ‘lending their ship’. The operation and scheduling is entirely driven by NSF’s response to science ideas and proposals. And finally, YES, the scientists are expecting nothing in return, except contributing to the global knowledge base, getting some publications, and perhaps even tenure. Been there, done that.
PEH[/quote]The U.S. National Science Foundation charters the ship for payment.
[quote=”Scott”]So if you all agree that corporations do indeed only have one mandate; profit, it would therefore be safe for you to assume that the owners of the JOIDES Resolution ship, Transocean which is “the world’s largest offshore drilling contractor, provides the most versatile fleet of mobile offshore drilling units to help customers find and develop oil and natural gas reserves” and DSND Shipping, AS “an underwater contracting business that specializes in the development of underwater installations and oil well maintenance” also have that same mandate but, on this particularly unique occasion they are simply lending their 143M long ship for these experiments and are they expecting absolutely nothing in return, would that be correct?[/quote]
I usually agree with you Scott but you are wrong on this one. I spent two years on board the Glomar Challenger working for the Deep Sea Drilling Project, and I can tell you that we were absolutely not trying to find oil and natural gas reserves. On the contrary, we were always trying to find a place with no oil or gas so that we could drill deeper and recover more core samples to study. The Glomar Challenger, like the JOIDES Resolution, was designed to drill in the deep ocean and was not equipped with a riser system to control pressure. If we encountered gas we were forced to abandon the site.
[url=https://www.planetseed.com/node/15303]JOIDES Resolution and Riserless Drilling[/url]
That Transocean is part owner of the ship should not concern anyone. There are very few companies that are capable of owning and operating a ship like this. Transocean is leasing the ship to the IODP (Integrated Ocean Drilling Program), an international group of oceanographic institutions. The purpose is pure research, and ocean drilling is an essential part of furthering our knowledge of the ocean floor and the planet as a whole.The Glomar Challenger came into Puntarenas in June 1979, after drilling a series of holes to map a cross section of the Middle America Trench off the coast of Guatemala. This is an active subduction zone similar to the one off the coasts of both Japan and Indonesia. The Pacific Coast of Costa Rica is at a very high risk for a large earthquake followed by a tsunami 15-20 minutes later, as we saw in both Japan and Indonesia. The more knowledge we have about plate tectonics and ocean floor movement, the better.
[url=http://www.deepseadrilling.org/67/dsdp_toc.htm]Deep Sea Drilling Project Leg 67[/url]
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