ALBERT

Description: The proper pre-drilling preparation, on-site acquisition and post-drilling preservation of high-quality subsurface samples are crucial to ensure significant progress in the scientifically and societally important areas of subsurface biosphere and paleoclimate research. Two of the four research themes of IODP and ICDP and one of the four research areas of the Deep Carbon Observatory (DCO) focus on the subsurface biosphere. Increasing understanding of paleoclimate is a central goal of IODP and incorporated within the scope of the IMPRESS program, the successor of the IMAGES program. Therefore, the goal of our IODP–ICDP–DCO–J-DESC–MagellanPlus-sponsored workshop was to help advance deep biosphere and paleoclimate research by identifying needed improvements in scientific drilling planning and available technology, sample collection and initial analysis, and long-term storage of subsurface samples and data. Success in these areas will (a) avoid biological and other contamination during drilling, sampling, storage and shipboard/shore-based experiments; (b) build a repository and database of high-quality subsurface samples for microbiological and paleoclimate research available for the scientific community world-wide over the next decades; and (c) standardize, as much as possible, microbiological and paleoclimate drilling, sampling and storage workflows to allow results and data to be comparable across both space and time. A result of this workshop is the development and suggested implementation of new advanced methods and technologies to collect high-quality samples and data for the deep biosphere and paleoclimate scientific communities to optimize expected substantial progress in these fields. The members of this workshop will enhance communication within the scientific drilling community by crafting a handbook focused on pre-drilling, drilling and post-drilling operations.

Description: The International Continental Scientific Drilling Program (ICDP) has long espoused studies of deep subsurface life, and has targeted fundamental questions regarding subsurface life, including the following: "(1) What is the extent and diversity of deep microbial life and what are the factors limiting it? (2) What are the types of metabolism/carbon/energy sources and the rates of subsurface activity? (3) How is deep microbial life adapted to subsurface conditions? (4) How do subsurface microbial communities affect energy resources? And (5) how does the deep biosphere interact with the geosphere and atmosphere?" (Horsfield et al., 2014) Many ICDP-sponsored drilling projects have included a deep-life component; however, to date, not one project has been driven by deep-life goals, in part because geomicrobiologists have been slow to initiate deep biosphere-driven ICDP projects. Therefore, the Deep Carbon Observatory (DCO) recently partnered with the ICDP to sponsor a workshop with the specific aim of gathering potential proponents for deep-life-driven ICDP projects and ideas for candidate drilling sites. Twenty-two participants from nine countries proposed projects and sites that included compressional and extensional tectonic environments, evaporites, hydrocarbon-rich shales, flood basalts, Precambrian shield rocks, subglacial and subpermafrost environments, active volcano–tectonic systems, megafan deltas, and serpentinizing ultramafic environments. The criteria and requirements for successful ICDP applications were presented. Deep-life-specific technical requirements were discussed and it was concluded that, while these procedures require adequate planning, they are entirely compatible with the sampling needs of other disciplines. As a result of this workshop, one drilling workshop proposal on the Basin and Range Physiographic Province (BRPP) has been submitted to the ICDP, and several other drilling project proponents plan to submit proposals for ICDP-sponsored drilling workshops in 2016.