This quilt is one of a series of quilts I generated following Election Day 2024. There were so many changes to laws, funding, access – especially related to my discipline and my research – that I used my sewing machine for Processing the Policies. Explore the collection.

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The third Saturday of March each year marks (Inter)National Quilting Day. The day is filled with online quilting webinars and demonstrations, as well as in-person events. I decided to spend the day stitching a quilt that has been on my mind to make, based upon the crying eye design I created several months ago for How Do I…?

I’m titling this quilt Red Sky Morning, SciOD Warning. SciOD stands for scientific ocean drilling, and the ship appearing in the eyeball is the scientific drilling vessel JOIDES Resolution. This ship has been collecting deep-sea material through continuous cores since the 1980’s but concluded its participation in the International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP) in 2024. Now, the ship sits in cold stack, waiting for what seems to be its final voyage to a scrap yard for dismantling.

With the loss of this ship (referred to as the JR) from the oceanographic research fleet, there is no other existing ship that performs the same function – sailing across the globe, into all ocean basis, drilling through layers of ocean sediment and crustal material. The core material provides a critical snapshot of geologic history into plate tectonics, paleoceanography, climate records, geohazards, and so much more. Much has been written about the conclusion of IODP and JOIDES Resolution (articles have been collected here).

The lack of a ship to replace JOIDES Resolution leaves an enormous gap in the capacity to collect samples to advance our knowledge of Earth’s systems past and present. The ocean is the most unexplored region of our planet, especially the deep sea – and now, the oceanography community no longer has access to the vessel that made access to these unexplored areas of our own planet possible.

I based the title of this quilt off the maritime phrase “red sky in the morning, sailors take warning” (see explanation from NOAA). In this case, the red sky is the warning for not just the oceanography community but for everyone to be aware that our advancements and knowledge on the scientific ocean drilling research themes will be significantly scaled back. The tears are from scientists no longer having access or the ability to pursue research questions, field opportunities, or funding for deep-sea research that utilized the capabilities of JOIDES Resolution.

I had the opportunity to sail on board JOIDES Resolution for two months in 2022, posting images, writing blog posts, and generating quilts about stories of science at sea. There are many others that have authored scientific journal articles, produced videos, and found ways to continue the research from the amazing core collection from prior expeditions. So the research is not completely stopping – it is just the access to new material with new sampling technologies to respond to questions that rely on analyzing samples as soon as they are collected will have to wait until a new ship is built (now that would be a sailor’s delight).