Members of the D’Hondt lab lead and participate in expeditions throughout the world. A few of these expeditions are briefly described below.

South Pacific Gyre

D’Hondt and Fumio Inagaki co-led Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP) Expedition 329, an Oct-Dec 2010 cruise to the heart of the South Pacific Gyre, where we are examining habitability and life in the deepest sediment and underlying basalt in one of Earth’s most food-limited subseafloor regions. The South Pacific Gyre is Earth’s largest oceanographic region, covering 10% of Earth’s total surface area. Its deep subseafloor ecosystem had never been previously explored. Expedition 329 was based on IODP proposal 662-Full3 (click here). It was the second ocean drilling expedition to be principally dedicated to study of subsurface life.

We surveyed this region on a Dec 2006-Jan 2007 expedition to identify appropriate drilling sites and refine scientific objectives for the drilling expedition. This expedition was led by D’Hondt and sponsored by the NSF Ocean Drilling Program. You can get one scientist’s perspective of life on this expedition by visiting Bill Griffith’s journal (click here). Bill is a high-school teacher whose participation in the expedition was sponsored by the NSF-supported ARMADA program (part of the Office of Marine Programs at the URI Graduate School of Oceanography).

Bering Sea

Graduate students Heather Schrum and Emily Walsh participated as shipboard scientists on IODP expedition 323 in the Bering Sea (July-Sept 2009). Their objective (and that of our collaborators Nils Risgaard-Petersen and Laura Wehrmann) was to study the nature of subseafloor sedimentary life in one of the most productive regions of the world ocean. The expedition was led by Kozo Takahashi and Christina Ravelo. The expedition’s primary objective was to understand the Plio-Pleistocene evolution of this Arctic gateway region.

Equatorial Pacific

The principal objective of our Jan-Feb 2009 expedition to the equatorial Pacific and the North Pacific gyre was to refine and test our global models of microbial activity and biomass in subseafloor sediment. This expedition, led by D’Hondt, was the first scientific project to use the new U.S. long-coring facility developed by Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. The expedition was sponsored by the Biological Oceanography program of the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF).

For a detailed look at this expedition, visit Cheryl Manning’s expedition journal (click here).  Cheryl is a Colorado high-school teacher who was a shipboard scientist on the expedition. Her participation was sponsored by the ARMADA program.

Peru Margin

Another major expedition was eastern Pacific Ocean Drilling Program (ODP) Leg 201 (Jan-Mar 2002). Leg 201, led by D’Hondt and Bo Barker Jørgensen, was the first ocean drilling expedition dedicated to study of subsurface life. Scientific results of this expedition have been published in many peer-reviewed articles, the ODP Leg 201 Initial Reports (click here) and the ODP Leg 201 Scientific Results volume (click here).

Rhode Island

We also take advantage of the field opportunities afforded by the marine environments that surround GSO, including Narragansett Bay and the Pettaquamscutt River estuary.

In all of these projects, we collaborate closely with other faculty, students and staff from URI and other institutions.