Summary

August 2004 marks an exciting new chapter in the history of Arctic exploration and research as three icebreakers head toward the North Pole on an expedition to study the geological history of the Arctic Ocean. By examining sediments recovered from beneath the seafloor, itself a technological and engineering feat, scientists will uncover and painstakingly reconstruct the evolution of climate and environmental conditions of the past 50 million years.

These deep-sea sediments are expected to reveal a global climate swing from a warm hothouse world, to the present era, characterized by the waxing and waning of ice ages. The six-week Arctic Coring Expedition (ACEX) is an inaugural effort of the international Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP). The IODP is sponsored by 16 countries and is funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation, the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, and the European Consortium for Ocean Research Drilling (ECORD). The aim of the IODP is to conduct basic research into the history of the ocean basins and the overall nature of the crust beneath the seafloor.