With the decommissioning of the JOIDES Resolution in August 2024, much of the Cretaceous to Cenozoic history of our oceans still remain unexplored. Despite the decommissioning of the JOIDES Resolution, core materials collected since the late '60s remain in archives and await researchers to unlock their secrets. From the Deep-Sea Drilling Project (DSDP), Ocean Drilling Program (ODP), and the International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP), thousands of cores from the ocean floor worldwide remain to be examined by micropalaeontologists. These ocean drilling materials are invaluable for producing scientific insight into the evolution of life on Earth over the past 140 million years. The nature of notable global events such as global anoxic events, extinctions, radiations, turnovers, hyperthermals, climatic optima, and global cooling recorded in these sediments can be revealed by micropaleontological study. In this session, we invite micropalaeontologists and others working with drill core archives all around the world to contribute and display their findings in order to untangle the complex marine history through the lens of the microscope. We also welcome research based on marine sediment cores from other expeditions, such as Holocene-age materials from piston cores and other shallow drilling. We encourage participants to present their findings to help reveal the secrets of our world's oceans, in order to better understand past conditions, acknowledge the present, and embrace the uncertain future
Preserving the Legacy of Ocean Drilling Program Materials: Micropalaeontology's Role in Unravelling the Mysteries of the Marine Realm