It is the world's largest multinational geoscience program, and addresses and solves global problems that cannot be dealt with in any other way. ODP provides researchers with access to a vast repository of geological and environmental information recorded below the ocea n surface in seafloor sediments and rocks. Australia joined in 1988, and the program ends in 2003. Using an acoustic beacon set on the seafloor, this system keeps the ship stabilised over the drill hole despite wind and waves, permitting drilling in water as deep as 8,000 m, and continuous coring down to as much as 2,000 m below the sea floor. As the hydraulic piston corer or drill bit cuts through layers of sediment and rock, cores of material are collected in tubes 9.5 m long.
Opportunities exist for other scientists and graduate students to initiate post-cruise studies.
Australian geoscientists work with international partners to prepare proposals for coring to solve global scientific problems. These proposals are rigorously assessed through a panel system and external review. Despite the small size of our scientific community, we have been remarkably successful in instigating proposals that have led to expeditions in the Australian region. When the vessel is not in the region, Australian scientists pursue global themes elsewhere. These scientists average nine months of full-time research work on the cruise results.