Welcome!

Hello, friends! Thanks for taking the time to stop by my blog. I hope that your visit will leave you wanting more.

As I write this post, I am preparing to sail as a shipboard scientist on International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP) Expedition 363. The IODP is an international marine research collaboration among 25 nations that aims to explore Earth's history and modern Earth dynamics through the collection of seafloor sediment samples and observation of current Earth system processes; you can learn more about it here. This particular expedition will be studying the regional responses of the Western Pacific Warm Pool (WPWP), the largest reservoir of warm surface waters on Earth, to local and global climate change over the past 15+ million years. But more on that in later posts.

The IODP operates two research vessels, the D/V Chikyu and the JOIDES Resolution. The Chikyu is newer (read: more shiny) and has the distinction of being able to drill deeper into sediments than any other scientific boat in the world. The JOIDES Resolution (or JR), on the other hand, is an oldie but a goodie and has a track record of highly successful research expeditions that extends back over 30 years. I'll be sailing on the JOIDES Resolution and am looking forward to asking tough questions about its slick past as an oil exploration vessel. The Chikyu is currently off the coast of Japan on a separate expedition studying microbes that live hundreds of kilometers below the seafloor (more on that here), but if I yell loudly enough from the JR, it's possible that my housemate on that expedition will hear me (yo, Kyle!).

That's all I have time for now, but I'm hoping to keep you all posted at least once a week - more if you poke me every once in a while about it. I'm looking forward to sharing my experiences with life on the boat and the exciting science that I'm taking part in. Until next time!

Smooth sailing,
Dan

---

*Side note on the title of this blog. I struggled to come up with something befitting of what I hope this blog will be: a casual, but informative look into life aboard a scientific research vessel and the science that takes place aboard it. It had to be something interesting, something memorable. While "sciencey" makes the grammarian within me go crazy, its definition on the venerable Urban Dictionary won me over: "Being sexy while performing scientific research". And shipboard science is super sexy, so this campaign season, let's Make Science Sexy Again. Sailing the Sciencey Seas 2016.