SIO Deep Sea Drilling Project Records, 1961-1987. Collection 87
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Accession No.: 87-20 PROCESSING RECORD SCRIPPS INSTITUTION OF OCEANOGRAPHY ARCHIVES ______________________________________________________________________________ Scripps Institution of Oceanography. Deep Sea Drilling Project SIO Deep Sea Drilling Project Records, 1961-1987 Bulk Dates: 1966-1987 PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: 356 rcc, 31 mss, 15 oversized tubes, video, film DESCRIPTION: As early as 1957 earth scientists discussed the possibility of drilling a hole through oceanic crust to the Mohorovicic discontinuity. This project became known as the Mohole Project, and was supported by the National Science Foundation. The first hole was drilled in 1961. Cost overruns led to the termination of the Mohole Project in 1966. In 1964, a consortium of oceanographic institutions, the Joint Oceanographic Institutions Deep Earth Sampling (JOIDES) was formed, and in 1965 the group submitted a proposal to NSF to drill sediments and shallow basement rocks in the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans and adjacent seas. In 1966 with NSF funding, the Deep Sea Drilling Project (DSDP) was operated at Scripps Institution of Oceanography. In January 1967, SIO signed a contract with the National Science Foundation to manage the drilling program. By March 1987 the project had expended over $226 million dollars. The DSDP contract ended in 1987 and drilling operations were moved to Texas A&M University. The records in this accession document the operation of the Deep Sea Drilling Project at SIO. The records include documentation of JOIDES and JOI, Inc., contracts and subcontracts, proposals, program plans, correspondence, safety reviews, leg files, radio messages, deck logs of R/V GLOMAR CHALLENGER, records of the Operations and Engineering office, records of project managers and chief scientists, documentation of instrumentation design, documentation of cruise staffing and DSDP personnel, press releases, photographs and other material. Provenance: The DSDP at SIO was officially terminated at midnight on 30 April 1987, after more than 20 years of operation. DSDP was scheduled for termination by the National Science Foundation in 1983, and the phase down of operation began that year. Records of the DSDP were maintained by many offices at UCSD/SIO including the files of the SIO Office of the Director, the SIO Office of Contracts and Grants, and the UCSD Accounting Office. However, the most complete records of the DSDP were maintained in the Project's offices at the Deep Sea Drilling Building at SIO. DSDP Principal Investigator Melvin N.A. Peterson was concerned about the preservation of DSDP records of permanent historical value. In September 1985, at his direction, the DSDP issued a contract for the services of Lynn Victoria Allen as consultant to "organize and list the Deep Sea Drilling Project's historical files …" and to "supervise all aspects of the preparation of a permanent archival storage vault in the Deep Sea Drilling Building and …supervise the placement of permanently valuable Deep Sea Drilling Project records in this facility." This work was done under the supervision of Peterson until October 1986 after which SIO Archivist Deborah Day provided supervision. Lynn Victoria Allan had previously served as Administrative Assistant to Peterson from May 1968 until May 1974. She had established and maintained Peterson's files as chief scientist, co-principal investigator, principal investigator and project manager of the DSDP and she was familiar with all aspects of DSDP recordkeeping. She began her work as records consultant by organizing Peterson's JOIDES files and adding to these the JOIDES files of other DSDP offices and the JOIDES rotating offices to form a complete JOIDES series of records. A rough draft of a compendium of the JOIDES Executive and Planning Committees' meetings was created by her. She created other like series of records, disturbing the original provenance of the records and gathering together material from several DSDP offices to form series of records on specific subjects. Though Allan reboxed records and refoldered some series, she discovered a very great quantity of records and, with the limited time at her disposal, was unable to completely reorganize or refolder all the series of records. She concentrated her efforts on locating records of permanent historical value, boxing these, placing them in the Deep Sea Drilling Building vault, and created a folder- by-folder list of each series. Allan in consultation with Peterson initially concluded that contract, subcontract, budgetary and other financial records which were not part of Melvin N.A. Peterson's files would be turned over to SIO Grants and Contracts administrator Norman Sattler at the termination of the Project. However, it was determined in April 1987 that a large percentage of these records which had been maintained by DSDP Contracts Officer Robert S. Bower would be added to those DSDP records transferred to the SIO Archives. DSDP personnel records remain confidential and are administered by Nona Crampton of the SIO Director's Office. DSDP personnel officer Sue Stain generated a series of job cards of DSDP employees with their job titles and dates of employment which has been added to the DSDP files as a permanent record of DSDP personnel. Also included are job descriptions and DSDP policies. Allan supervised the microfilming of some records which were transferred to Texas. Microfilmed material includes the XCOM and PCOM files. Also microfilmed were the Technical Oil Tool Corporation (TOTCO) core and drilling bit records and the IADC daily drilling reports. The original TOTCO and IADC records were sent to Ocean Drilling Program (ODP) / Texas A & M University (TAMU) (to be returned to SIO Archives upon their completion). The microfilms for the TOTCO and IADC records are housed in the DSDP archives. A data base of DSDP data was transferred to the National Geophysical Data Center (NGDC) at Boulder Colorado, and copies provided to: ODP/TAMU, Lamont-Doherty Geological Observatory, and the International Phase of Ocean Drilling (IPOD) Geophysical Data Bank (operated under ODP at NGDC). A microfilm copy of underway navigation notebooks and geophysical records from the Glomar Challenger are available at the SIO Geological Data Center. Arrangement: JOIDES SERIES (Boxes 1-19) This series consists of minutes, correspondence and related material of the Executive and Planning Committees and all panels of the Joint Oceanographic Institutions for Deep Earth Sampling (JOIDES). The series also includes a complete set of JOIDES Journals dated May 1975 – February 1987. The "JOIDES Journal" records the activities of all elements of the JOIDES structure from the start of the Journal - 1975. JOIDES was formed May 10, 1964 by a consortium of four oceanographic institutions: Scripps Institution of Oceanography (UCSD), Lamont Geological Observatory (Columbia University), (later changed to "Lamont-Doherty Geological Observatory"), Institute of Marine Science (University of Miami) (later changed to "Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science"), and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution to promote sea drilling research. The membership of JOIDES was later expanded to include the University of Washington (1968) and further expanded in 1974 to include University of Rhode Island, University of Hawaii, Oregon State University and Texas A & M University to provide for representation and balance during IPOD (See IPOD Series). The memo of agreement called for the establishment of an Executive Committee and a Business Advisory Committee (BAC served 1965-1968) to initiate administrative procedures, formulate basic policy and to ensure that collected samples be distributed to the scientific community. JOIDES functioned through an Executive Committee which provided policy advice, approvals and guidance, and a Planning Committee which was responsible for proposing scientific, technical and drilling activities for the project. DSDP Site Survey Program data, including Cape Hatteras to Mid-Atlantic Ridge multichannel line (cooperative with the United States Geological Survey), are in the custody of LDGO in International Phase of Ocean Drilling Geophysical Data Bank, operated by ODP. Contributed geophysical data, mainly multichannel reflection profiles, from participating IPOD non-U.S. countries and miscellaneous contributions, is in the custody of LDGO in IPOD Geophysical Data Bank, operated by ODP. Smooth (LIS) tapes and hard copy (mylar) well logs can be found at the NGDC, in Boulder. Colorado. Another set of these tapes can be found at LDGO Wireline Services Logging Operation under ODP. Other records including microfilms of original Prime Data Capture Worksheets and notebooks, a bibliography of DSDP related publications, can be located at the NGDC at Boulder. Summary DSDP site maps (Legs 1-96) can be found at the SIO Geological Data Center. X-radiograph files of cores and hydraulic piston core orientation rings can be found at ODP. The records described in this guide were formally transferred to the custody of the SIO Archives on 5 June 1987 by Melvin N.A. Peterson. The JOIDES Office was established in 1974 under puchase order contract with DSDP, and later operated under Joint Oceanographic Institutions, Incorporated (JOI, Inc.) since 1976. The JOIDES Office was responsible, under the direction of the Planning Committee chairman, for administrative services, JOIDES Journal publication, maintenance of records and cost data, furnishing advice, preparation of meeting summaries and reports and coordination of