IODP Exp. 361 sampling party

I attended at the IODP Exp. 361 sampling party in this November.

Exhibition space of TAM

I arrived at the Texas A&M University after about 15 hours flights (from Nagoya to College Station via Narita and Dallas).

Almost all shipboard scientists met together again, and some shore-based scientists newly joined. 

We are separated in two groups and each group had 6 hour shift. At fist I was in the morning shift (8:00 - 14:00), and later it was changed to afternoon shift (14:00 - 20:00).

Messy sampling table

Marine sediment from South Africa was sometimes so stiff that we needed a lot of energy.

Sampling efficiency increased at first, but reached to saturation after.

We competed each other in that how many samples each group and each sampling table could obtain in the working shift.

Finally we were able to obtain 36,000 samples!!

Before of After the working shift, we went to restaurants nearby and enjoyed chatting.

Nice sunset. Everyday we went to a restaurant near the hotel for dinner or lunch.

 College Station is a city for students, so beer of some restaurants were really cheep!

My friends from around the world!!

Dinner of the last night.

I could not find any interesting place to visit by walk. But I found one good park (Bark run).

a squirrel I found in a park

The sediment samples will be shipped in the coming two weeks to each institute.

After the arrival of samples I will soon start sieving the material in order to collect foraminifers.

End of X

We finally decided to finish coring operations in the last site, CAPE.
All laboratory are ready to be closed after cleaning up and returning the things as they were.

Shipboard scientist must keep in shift, until 6:00h on 31 March, and we will leave the JR at 9:00h.
We will go to the hotel together by bus, and that is the end of all activities of the ex[edition.
After that, we are free!

I'm planing to enjoy sight-seeing in the Cape Town, but first of all, I need good beer!

It will be a long day, because I must keep awake for about 20 hours until I go to bed in the hotel.
We have the right to enjoy the party, because 2 month long cruise will finally end.

This is the last diary that I write in English (and from the JR).
I will post a blog about my first experience of IODP cruise, after I come back to Japan, will will be written in Japanese. I hope it will help young scientists who have interests in joining the IODP expedition in the future.

Sampling plan

We  are now in the proximity of the last coring site, CAPE. It is located in the continental shelf offshore of the Cape Town Port.
We stay the last site for a couple of days and get off the ship on 31 Mar 10:00h.

We have finished writing summary of previous three sites and presentations (MZC, ZAM, and LIM).
An introduction of how to sample the sediment core was explained by core curator and we must fill in a special forms before the arrival at Cape Town.
Our sediment cores will be transported to Texas Univ. and later we gather there again for the sampling party, which is planned be held at the end of September this year.
We will stay Texas Core Repository for one week (perhaps), and allocate the sediment according to everyone's request (e.g., 10 cc sample from the top 3cm in Site1474, Working half, Hole A, Core 3, Section 1).

I guess that some of the cores obtained at the last site will be stored without split and being described. The first core on deck will be 6 hours later from now.
It takes several hours to make sediment core at room temperature, so the first core will be described by daytime shifters (I'm in a night shift).

It was long, long two months. I want to take a rest for a while but I must attend at an international meeting held at Hongo Campus (Isoecol) after just "one-day" off.
My Brazilian and French friends said that they will take a vacation after the expedition for 1 month and 1 week, respectively. I realized that cultures and employing systems are completely different among countries.

But, anyway, good beer and wine are waiting for me on land!

Sand and foram

We finished drilling 5th site, Limpopo River.
The sediment was accumulated in a moderate rate and we could reach to Late Miocene.
The sediment contain amazing number of foraminifers. It will be a great paleoceanographic record that we will make during the post-cruise phase.

However, Sedimentation pattern of this site is quite complex, so we concern about sediment drift. Chronology will be the most important issue when we discuss the isotopic and paleontological records obtained from this core.

Now we are heading for the last drilling site, Cape Town. But we have not yet finished describing the sediment from Limpopo as well as that from Mozambique Chanel sediment.
At the same time, we have to think about our post-cruise research and discuss with a lot of people about sampling strategy or potential collaboration.

Great Zambezi River

We arrived at 4th drilling site, near the mouth of Zambezi River.

The water depth is only 400 m, so the coring process is so fast! We obtain a new core every 15 minutes! We arrived here yesterday but have already drilled two holes.
We are describing cores while writing the site report of the previous site.

Sedimentation rate of this site is amazingly high, which is about 1 meter per thousand years (1 m/ka). It is about 30 times faster than the pelagic site (2,000 m water depth).
Main composition of the sediment is quartz and clay minerals transported by Zambezi River. We can also see some remains of plants (e.g., fragments of trees and leaves).

I have never seen riverine sediment cores, thus I enjoy seeing a lot variety of minerals originated from the continent (e.g., zircon and hornblende)
More than 95% pf sediment is consist of terrigenous materials and biogenic ones such as foraminifera, coccolithophore, and diatoms are very rare.

I miss forams so much...

Soon after we finish drilling the 3rd hole, we will leave for the next drilling site, Limpopo River. It takes only 2 days from here to the next site, thus we again will be busy preparing for presentation and writing the site summary.

Mozambique Chanel

We arrived at the 3rd drilling site, Mozambique Chanel.

This area was before drilled under the DSDP cruise (Site 252) and the drilled core is archived in Kochi Core Center.
We expect that we can obtain well-preserved pelagic sediments covering Plio-Pleistocene. Sedimentation is not so high that we will easily get to Pliocene/Miocene boundary.

The sea is covered with a lot of eddies due to complex ocean current systems and characteristic geography, but wave is somewhat calm. I can feel almost no movement of the ship.

After the arrival of the first core, we will spend very busy three weeks until the port call.
We will have to describe sediment cores while preparing for site summary, and then transit to the next site.

I hope I can see a lot of planktonic foraminifers in the sediments that will be used for isotopic measurements during post-cruise moratorium period.

ETA of the first core is when I'm dreaming in the bed today.

Heading north

We are now heading north, the northernmost site of our cruise, Mozambique Channel.

We nearly gave up the drilling at the site, but finally we obtained the permission of drilling!

We are now preparing for reports of previous site, Agluhas Plateau. It still have additional four days until we get to the Mozambique Chanel, so we enjoy the subtropical weather in outdoor bench.

A beautiful sunrise (I have not seen the sunset for one month)

A relax time in picnic table

After the arrival to Mozambique Chanel, we will drill additional three site. Thus, it will be deadly busy in the coming three weeks!

As the remained drilling sites are generally shallow (< 1,000 m), we will get sediment cores one after another.

End of Hole (APT Site)

We drilled 6 holes at APT Site, Agluhas Plateau, and at last left the site.
The weather was fine for the first couple of days but tuned bad later. The weather affected the quality of sediment cores, because ship movements sometimes destroy cores that is ready to be drilled.

Unfortunately, we could not obtain the complete splice core at this site, but could obtain plenty of sediment that is well-preserved.

Foraminifers' shells, of which I have the greatest interest, are abundant in the sediment. Moreover, I enjoyed seeing a lot of diatoms, radiolaria, and variety of minerals in smear slides.
Agulhas Plateau is a sensitive region to past environmental changes, because degree of Agulhas Leakage changed periodically in glacial - interglacial climate changes.
After the expedition I will pick up the forams and measure trace element and isotopes of them. The other day I gave a help to micro-paleontological group, and realized washing, sieving, and picking processes are so hard!

Today is a leap day as well as a half way of the expedition! Thus we call the day as "lump day (leap + hump)". A midnight dance party are now being held. Everyone is dancing in the loud music.

The next coring site has not been decided yet (hopefully, ZAM site), but we are heading north.

To the next coring site

We finished describing all cores recovered from the first site, Natal Valley. We are now preparing for site reports. Presentation of all sub-group finished yesterday.

The ship are heading south for the second site, Agluhas Plateau, which is the southernmost site of this expedition.

We hope continuous pelagic sediment are recovered from the next site, which will change periodically between subtropical (e.g., forams and cocoliths) and subpolar lithologies (e.g., diatoms).
It means sedimentologist group will be very busy describing cores.

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I go to the gym at least once every two days. My favorites are running machine and weight lifting.

Sometimes I keep my dinner wrapped, and ate them after training.

At the moment , I keep my body style.

The first core

Yesterday, we finished drilling sediment cores at the first core site, Natal Valley.

It was so exciting to see how the drilling device are combined and how coring operation are conducted.

The lithology of the core looks similar to all depth (about 300 m were drilled with almost 100% recovery), so descriptions of the core and smear slide observation is quite simple. Foraminifer shells, that I hope to obtain, are abundant in the sediment, but core disturbances are severe.

Now we are drilling the second core in the same site. As there is no large changes in lithology, it is dull to describe all cores again!

But this procedure is important because both end of cores (upper and lower parts) are generally destroyed and we must splice it with the adjacent cores (Hole B, C etc.).


It takes long time for my body to adopt to irregular rhythm of life in the ship (wake up at 23:00 and sleep at 15:00).

I can not sleep well in the bed although I go to gym every two days for running and training my muscle.

Food in the ship is so nice that I can hardly become fed up with.


We will stay at this site in at least 5 days. We are looking for something interesting and stimulating!

Smear Slide Observation

Sediment core description

From South of Madagascar

Now we are heading for first core site, Natal Valley. We revised the drilling plan because of some diplomatic issue.
There are often piracy in the north of Madagascar Island, thus we are now going in the southern course.

Currently we are discussing how to describe the splitted core, how to handle them, and how to write the report.

It is two days left until we arrive at the first core site. We must make ourselves fitted to day/night shift until the arrival. I'm in a night shift, so I will wake up in the mid-night and go to bed in the afternoon.

I have a really good friendship with members of this expedition, and enjoy a conversation with them so much! We are the family because we will spend dense two months together and our relationship will last for a couple of decades after this expedition, too.

JOIDES Resolution

A sign we found in the town of Port Louis!

Safety emergency drill

A magnificent sunset seen from the JR

A beautiful rainbow when we leave the port

A tag boat pull the JR during the departure

International community

I've got on board the US drilling ship JOIDES Resolution that is staying in Port Louis.

The inside of the ship is so clean and faculty members and staffs are very kind.

I really enjoy the meals here, and sometimes go to restaurant in waterfront area.

Scientific party is very international, and people come from US, Japan, Germany, UK, France, Australia, Brazil, China, and so on. My room mate is French.
I enjoy talking with new international friends, although I don't remember their names yet. The contents of the talk are mainly on science and culture of our own countries.

No one can properly pronounce/remember either Kaoru or Kubota, thus I will tell them "Just call me K".

Dr. K. 

It's a good name because there is a famous character in Japanese comic named Dr. K.
By the way, KUBOTA is popular in Japan owing to famous agricultural company and sake.

We share the cabin by two people in the ship, because a working shift is separated by day/night.
My shit is decided to be night shift. I will work from 0:00 to 12:00 every day. Thus I planed my life schedule as follows,

23:00 wake up

23:20 breakfast

0:00 the shift start

6:00 lunch

12:00 the shift end

12:20 dinner

13:00 training at gym

15:00 go to bed

It is very funny schedule. But considering a jet lug between here and Japan, it is very regular.
Thus, I may not suffer from the jet lug so much after I come back to Japan.

IODP Exp.361 "Southern African Climates (SAFARI)"

I will join the IODP Exp.361 "Southern African Climates (SAFARI)" as a sedimentologist.

Today I leave Haneda International Airport (Japan) for Mauritius via Dubai.
(By the way, today is my 29th birthday.)

A drilling ship, JOIDES Resolution is waiting for cruise members in Port Louis already. And it is surprised that R/V Hakuho-maru, a research ship owned by The Univ. Tokyo, also is staying in the same place!

It is for the first time for me to see African Continent, Madagascar Island, coral reefs in Mauritius! So I'm so excited.

In this expedition, I'm going to obtain planktonic foraminifers' samples preserved in the sediment in the southeastern Africa and measure boron isotopes of their shells.
I hope we can get plenty, well-preserved samples, and there is no conflicts between scientists.

We will leave ship at Cape town, Republic of South Africa  after about two month operation in the sea.

I will return to Japan on 2nd April. During the expedition I have to prepare a presentation at a scientific conference that will be held from 3rd April!

Additionally, I will revise two manuscript of scientific papers (one was now under the review and the other will be submitted soon).

Ah, I wanna forget about them because I have to work 12 hours a day without holiday two month.

Bellow are details of the expedition.

Press release from JAMSTEC
Details of the expedition from Texas A&M University