Marine Geological and Geophysical Roots of the Ocean OBservatories Initiative

摘要

The ocean sciences are based on a rich exploratory heritage that dates back over a century, and expeditionary oceanography on dedicated research vessels will remain a vital component of current ocean sciences research―but a complementary new approach is also being embraced by the ocean sciences community. Recent decades have witnessed increasingly detailed spatial exploration of the oceans and seafloor, along with an evolution toward temporal exploration of change in the oceans and linkages among active processes through sustained time-series observations and adaptive long-term observatory technology. Understanding temporal evolution and linkages among processes in the oceans and the underlying plates will require a coordinated investment in a full-time observational presence within the oceans and on and beneath the seafloor―an approach that is embodied in the budding Ocean Observatories Initiative (OOI) and Ocean Research Interactive Observatories Network (ORION) program within the National Science Foundation (NSF; Isern and Clark, in press; Clark, foreword to this volume). While the value of sustained time series observations is acknowledged throughout all ocean sciences, some of the earliest coordinated efforts toward seafloor observatory science came from marine geology and geophysics, either within formal programs or from small groups of scientists. The purpose of this article is to provide a brief historical perspective of the marine geological and geophysical roots that have joined with comparable roots from other branches of ocean sciences (described in other articles in this issue) in the evolutionary process toward ocean and seafloor observatory science. The philosophical approach and investments in infrastructure for sustained time-series observations can be shared across all disciplines of ocean sciences, and ultimately, crossing the lines between disciplines may be one of the greatest benefits of the OOI.