Introduction
The Ocean Drilling Stratigraphic Network is intended to facilitate work
with the stratigraphic data gathered by the Deep Sea Drilling Project
and Ocean Drilling Program by providing access to databases and tools,
and communication among researchers.
Stratigraphic data have been collected for three decades by the Deep
Sea Drilling Project (DSDP), and the Ocean Drilling Program (ODP).
These international activities have provided a wealth of information
about environmental conditions in the oceans during the geologic past.
The scientific results of the ocean drilling programs have had a major
impact on the understanding of the Earth's history and development of
its climate system.
The acquisition and archiving of data related to shipboard drilling
activities has been the responsibility of the drilling program operator.
Much of the data produced on board ship and some shorebased studies
carried out in conjunction with the drilling legs has been published in
the Initial Reports and Scientific Results volumes of the DSDP and ODP.
However, the paper medium is no longer suited to be the exclusive
archive for these scientific efforts. Part of the data produced by the
DSDP and ODP are available on CDROMs, and additional data reside in the
ODP database. However, these electronically accessible data are in a
variety of formats and are not readily integrated. Furthermore, much
subsequent research has been carried out by individual scientists
working with materials collected by the DSDP/ODP with no provision for
archiving of the data produced.
To discuss and seek remedies to the problems of using stratigraphic
data from the DSDP and ODP, an international workshop about Objectives and
Implementation of an Ocean Drilling Stratigraphic Network (ODSN) was
held in Bremen, Germany December 18-20, 1995. It was organized by a
group of North German institutions especially concerned with marine
geology and geophysics (Fachbereich Geowissenschaften, Universität
Bremen; GEOMAR Forschungszentrum für marine Geowissenschaften, Kiel;
Geologisch-Paläontologisches Institut, Universität Kiel; Alfred-Wegener
Institut für Polar- und Meeresforschung, Bremerhaven), and was sponsored
by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft and the Senator für Wirtschaft of
Land Bremen. The workshop outlined an international initiative to
improve the quality and usage of stratigraphic data generated by the
Deep Sea Drilling Project/Ocean Drilling Program and related research
programs. Experts representing many fields of Geoscience were invited
to present their perceptions of problems in the use of the vast amounts
of information that have been collected, discuss potential solutions,
and relate their experiences in synthesizing data.
The workshop concluded that the ODSN should provide a distributed
database system and communication network for data exchange and
scientific cooperation. It should promote the organization of
stratigraphic information for drill sites, regions, and geologic time
intervals. It should become a resource for scientific investigations,
providing improved age models, better stratigraphic correlation between
drill sites, regions and ocean basins. It should maintain homogenous
stratigraphic data sets that can serve to further scientific
programmes.
