IODP Expedition 330 Louisville Seamount Trail
Probing Wandering Mantle Plumes in the Pacific Ocean

IODP Expedition 330 to the Louisville Seamount Trail will drill four underwater volcanoes off the NE coast of New Zealand. One hypothesis states that these volcanoes formed above a narrow plume of hot mantle rising from a position deep in the Earth's mantle. For decades scientists assumed these mantle plumes remain anchored there for tens of millions years, but there is mounting evidence that mantle plumes wander in a large-scale mantle wind. This expedition aims to establish how much mantle plumes may have moved over the last 80 million years and whether the Louisville hotspot moved coherently with the Hawaii hotspot. Read the Expedition Prospectus for details ...


Day 26 - 06 January 2011 - Let's Move Over
To re-enter Hole U1373A we had to deploy a free-fall funnel (FFF) into the hard ground of the seamount top. Our hope was that the erosive action of the drill pipe rotating had worn out the top of the hole sufficiently enough that the FFF would go in. If not, and it would tip over, we always could resort to trying to find the hole without any aid of the FFF but simply to try and aim for it. An amazing idea, but they had it done before in hard ground so definitely two shots worth trying. When the ... Read more
Day 24 - 04 January 2011 - Site U1373 on 28.6°S Guyot
After the abrupt ending of the first drill site, we weren't in for a guyot covered by boulders and a surface of outcropping lava flows, but that is exactly what we encountered when lowering the VIT camera at Site U1373. The co-chiefs were now huddling over a small black-and-white monitor in the dynamical positioning (DP) room to use this vibration-isolated television camera to find ourselves a spot with a decent soft sediment cover. Using GPS and its abundant thrusters, the JOIDES Resolution ... Read more
Day 21 - 01 January 2011 - 2011 On the South Pacific
After leaving Site U1372 so abruptly we were now on our way to Site U1373 which is alternate Site LOUI-6A on Guyot 28.6°S. This seamount lies not too far away from the first site and we estimate this seamount got formed around 73 million years ago, that is in the Cretaceous. This also meant we were in transit between sites while crossing into the New Year of 2011. Evidently we were one of the first people in the world to do so, as this new Louisville seamount is located very close to the date ... Read more
Day 19 - 30 December 2010 - What About Getting Stuck on a Seamount?
All good things end - at least a pessimist would argue so. Generally I would disagree, but things were turning worse with every new core we were getting on deck. The first bad signs came when the recovery started going from 19% to 115% and vice versa. And it kept fluctuating. We quickly noticed that every time we had poor recovery, we also had a few basaltic clasts or pebbles "jamming" the core catcher. As soon as a few of these pebbles decided to block the core catcher they evidently didn't ... Read more
Day 16 - 27 December 2010 - Reaching Volcanic Basement at Site U1372
After five days of drilling at Site U1372 we have recovered many wonderful cores with many wonderful rocks of many kinds. In fact the cores already have provided us with lots of the rocks and minerals we require for our onshore research programs, which is a very good beginning of our expedition! We cored into a colorful volcaniclastic sediment of carbonate-cemented volcanic breccia. Some of the breccias have boulders in them that in themselves are very well-preserved, containing for example ... Read more
Day 14 - 25 December 2010 - Christmas Onboard the JOIDES Resolution
We are spending this year's Christmas together with 120 people on the JOIDES Resolution. Although all our families are far away at home and we are longing to be in their company, we have been making the best of this special holiday. In fact, a great effort was made by many on onboard the JOIDES Resolution to make this a memorable day and indeed it was! A special committee was assembled who organized all fesitivities, and the catering staff have been tremendously busy to put together a wonderful ... Read more
Day 11 - 22 December 2010 - Drilling Into the Volcanic Basement of 26.5° Guyot
For me Expedition 330 started in Corvallis (Oregon) on December 10 with 20 hours worth of flights from Portland to Los Angeles to Sydney with a final destination in Auckland, New Zealand. Of course I crossed the date line and so on my way I lost one extra day, arriving late in the afternoon on December 12. I was pretty much exhausted. The weather was fair and already early in the morning of that same day the JOIDES Resolution had arrived in Wynard Wharf at 06:36, officially marking the end of ... Read more
Day 9 - 20 December 2010 - Arriving at Site U1372 (LOUI-1C) at 26.5°S Guyot
Today we reached a milestone with the first-ever drilling of a Louisville seamount! It took more than seven years of preparation to get to this point, and everybody onboard the JOIDES Resolution is completely psyched by the idea it finally starts now. In these preceding years we have written and rewritten many versions of our IODP proposal, we have filed many reports to many IODP panels, we have carried out a six week site survery on the R/V Roger Revelle in 2006, and over the last year we have ... Read more
Day 1 – 12 December 2010 – Port Call Expedition 330 in Auckland, New Zealand
For me Expedition 330 started in Corvallis (Oregon) on December 10 with 20 hours worth of flights from Portland to Los Angeles to Sydney with a final destination in Auckland, New Zealand. Of course I crossed the date line and so on my way I lost one extra day, arriving late in the afternoon on December 12. I was pretty much exhausted. The weather was fair and already early in the morning of that same day the JOIDES Resolution had arrived in Wynard Wharf at 06:36, officially marking the end of ... Read more
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Daily Report 62 -- Friday 11 February 2011
Expedition 330 concludes when we arrive in port on Friday the 11th of February. Two months of drilling are over and a happy science team leaves the ship, knowing that all scientific objectives have been met and beyond. Now for many a few days or weeks of rest is deserved and after that the rock samples will arrive in our labs and we will start the second phase of this project, our shore-based analyses ... Read more
Daily Report 61 -- Thursday 10 February 2011
The last site meeting for Site U1377 was conducted in the morning. All lab groups presented their findings and preliminary results. Later today, the scientists submitted their last site reports. Scientists, technical personnel and ships crew are busy with preparing the labs and the ship for arrival in Auckland. While the ship crossed the Kermadec deep sea trench, magnetic field strength data were collected with the ships towed magnetometer before the instrument was retrieved early next morning ... Read more
Daily Report 60 -- Wednesday 09 February 2011
The last sampling for personal, post-cruise studies was conducted for all cores from last Site U1377. The first lab groups have submitted their U1377 Site Reports and the co-chief scientists are busy writing the expedition summary. Cleaning activities in all areas of the lab stack have started or are underway ... Read more
Daily Report 59 -- Tuesday 08 February 2011
Drilling operations for Expedition 330 were concluded this morning. While the vessel is underway to Auckland, all lab groups are busy with describing the last core sections, analyzing shipboard samples and preparing their last site report ... Read more
Daily Report 58 -- Monday 07 February 2011
Cores U1377B-1R to -5R were retrieved with 30% average recovery. The first core recovered 1.09 m of predominantly soft, pelagic foraminiferal ooze containing well-preserved Pliocene to recent foraminifers. About 30 cm of basaltic conglomerate covered by a ferromanganese crust was found at the bottom of the core. The conglomerate is cemented by a white limestone matrix that contains planktonic and ... Read more
Daily Report 57 -- Sunday 06 February 2011
Cores U1377A-3R to -6R (15.1 to 53.3 mbsf) were retrieved with 22% recovery and comprise a variety of igneous lithologies. Core U1377A-3R recovered 1.4 m of relatively altered igneous rocks that could represent a dike based on the occurrence of subvertical vesicle bands but no contacts were recovered. Preliminary results of the shipboard ICP-spectrometer indicate a more evolved, silica-rich composition for this unit. Deeper in the hole is a succession of moderately ol-phyric and aphyric pillow ... Read more
Daily Report 56 -- Saturday 05 February 2011
Hole U1377A was spudded in the early afternoon. Core U1377A-1R (0-6.1 mbsf) contained only a few cm of foraminifera ooze with abundant recent nannofossils and pumiceous volcanic glass fragments in the core catcher. Core U1377A-2R (6.1-15.1 mbsf) retrieved 14 cm of bioturbated offshore micritic limestone with ferromanganese encrustations. The material contains abundant planktonic foraminifers but the investigation is still ongoing. Sampling for personal, post-expedition research was conducted ... Read more
Daily Report 55 -- Friday 04 February 2011
The scientists spent today’s transit day to catch up with thin section description and report writing. The series of U1376 Site Meetings was continued with presentations by the Igneous Petrology, Alteration Petrology, and Structural Geology lab groups ... Read more
Daily Report 54 -- Thursday 03 February 2011
Hole U1376A was successfully logged from 181.1 mbsf up to the pipe (set at ~80 mbsf) with three tool strings: the Triple Combo (natural gamma radiation, density, porosity and resistivity), the third party borehole magnetometer (magnetic field), and the Formation MicroScanner (electrical images of the borehole wall). After completion, the drill string was recovered and the vessel left for the last Site U1377 in the late evening. The scientific party is busy preparing site reports and lab group ... Read more
Daily Report 53 -- Wednesday 02 February 2011
Cores U1376A-20R to -23R (148.1-182.8 mbsf) were retrieved with 73% recovery. The succession continues downhole with heterolithic breccia in a hyaloclastic matrix. Both matrix and clasts are highly olivine-phyric with up to cm-size olivine crystals of variable preservation stage (fresh to altered). As in the cores above, fresh volcanic glass is abundant and can be found both in the matrix and in some of the clasts. In the lower part of Core U1376A-22R another aphyric dike was encountered that ... Read more
Daily Report 52 -- Tuesday 01 February 2011
Cores U1376A-13R to -19R (101.2 to 148.1 mbsf) were retrieved with 63% recovery. With Core U1376-13R we reached the base of the unusually thick (33 m) highly olivine-augite-phyric lava flow and continued drilling into at mixed succession of hyaloclastic breccia and clasts, a smaller olivine-phyric lava flow (2 m thick) and aphyric, sub-vertical sheet intrusions (dikes). Since this material is relatively soft, compared to the massive flow above, the penetration rate increased to 2.9 m/hr. Vast ... Read more
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2010-2011 Expedition
Follow IODP Expedition 330 via pictures! On a day-by-day basis Co-Chief Scientist Anthony Koppers will provide his view of life onboard the JOIDES Resolution and the science carried out by an international group of scientists ...
View Image Gallery  |  View Videos
Primary Objectives
  • Determine the Paleolatitude Change (if any) over time for the Louisville hotspot.
  • Determine the Volcanic History of individual seamounts and Age Progression along the Louisville trail through 40Ar/39Ar age dating.
  • Determine the Magmatic Evolution of the Louisville seamounts and their Mantle Source through major and trace element and isotope geochemistry.
Secondary Objectives
  • Determine whether the Ontong Java Plateau formed from the plume head of the Louisville mantle plume at ~120 Ma.
  • Determine the degree, potential temperature, and degree and depth of Partial Melting at which Louisville magmas were generated.
  • Provide Paleoceanographic and Paleoclimate Data at 40°-50°S paleolatitudes in the southern ocean from cored Louisville pelagic sediments.

Canopus Guyot (26.5°S Guyot) 		Site U1372

LOUI-1C

LAT   26°29.60'S
LON 174°43.75'W
DEPTH 1950 m
AGE 75 Ma
EQUAL Detroit

DRILLING PLAN
  15 m Pelagics
  40 m Volcanics
350 m Basalts

PRIMARY SITE

Rigil Guyot (28.6°S Guyot) 		Site U1373

LOUI-6A

LAT   28°33.93'S
LON 173°16.78'W
DEPTH 1440 m
AGE 72 Ma
EQUAL Detroit

DRILLING PLAN
  10 m Pelagics
110 m Volcanics
350 m Basalts

ALTERNATE SITE

Rigil Guyot (28.6°S Guyot) 		Site U1374

LOUI-6B

LAT   28°35.75'S
LON 173°22.83'W
DEPTH 1545 m
AGE 72 Ma
EQUAL Detroit

DRILLING PLAN
  10 m Pelagics
110 m Volcanics
350 m Basalts

ALTERNATE SITE

Archernar Guyot (33.7°S Guyot)		Site U1375

LOUI-2B

LAT   33°41.90'S
LON 171°26.94'W
DEPTH 1259 m
AGE 60 Ma
EQUAL Suiko

DRILLING PLAN
  15 m Pelagics
  44 m Volcanics
350 m Basalts

PRIMARY SITE

Burton Guyot (32.3°S Guyot) 		Site U1376

LOUI-7A

LAT   32°12.99'S
LON 171°52.84'W
DEPTH 1505 m
AGE 64 Ma
EQUAL Suiko

DRILLING PLAN
  10 m Pelagics
110 m Volcanics
350 m Basalts

ALTERNATE SITE

Hadar Guyot (168.6°W) 		Site U1377

LOUI-4B

LAT   38°10.98'S
LON 168°38.26'W
DEPTH 1248 m
AGE 50 Ma
EQUAL Koko

DRILLING PLAN
    8 m Pelagics
  52 m Volcanics
350 m Basalts

PRIMARY SITE
The Thrill-to-Drill on the JOIDES Resolution
Anthony Koppers will be at sea for two months and as a co-chief scientist will lead a group of 30 scientists to drill four (extinct) submarine volcanoes in the Louisville seamount trail. He will bring you updates on his day-to-day business while at sea with blogs and photo galleries. Stay tuned for his impressions of life and work onboard the JOIDES Resolution and for cool new science discoveries.