Ocean Discovery Lecture

I am one of the six speakers that are a part of the Ocean Discovery Lecture Series for 2025-2026. My scientific ocean drilling colleagues and I are traveling to institutions across the United States to speak about the JOIDES Resolution expeditions on which we sailed, sharing the sites we visited, the science we have learned, and the connections to society.

person standing in front of a ship in port, with the words on the image, "scientific ocean drilling" and "Stories of Communicating Scientific Ocean Drilling, from Text to Textiles" and "Laura Guertin, Penn State Brandywine"

My title and description:

STORIES OF COMMUNICATING SCIENTIFIC OCEAN DRILLING, FROM TEXT TO TEXTILES

Starting with the very first scientific oceanographic research expedition, scientists in this field have been sharing their discoveries with wide-ranging audiences. Tales of adventures at sea are disseminated in the popular press (social media, magazines, books, etc.), while the completed analyses of deep-sea samples are published in scholarly reports and peer-reviewed journals. This presentation will highlight specific examples of how scientific ocean drilling expeditions have been shared from CUSS 1 (Project Mohole), Glomar Challenger, and JOIDES Resolution. A spotlight will be placed on DSDP Leg 3 from 1969, the expedition that provided the evidence for plate tectonics, and IODP Expedition 390, which visited the region just over 50 years later and on which I sailed in 2022 as an Onboard Outreach Officer.

In addition to sharing the process of science at sea through social media, daily geospatial updates, blog posts, and Zoom sessions, I have continued disseminating stories post-expedition through audio narratives and the generation of a quilt collection that includes data visualizations and gamified tapestries. This presentation will include audio clips from scientists that sailed on early and more recent scientific ocean drilling expeditions, exemplifying their experiences with ship-to-shore communications and access to global news. Select quilts from the Stories of the South Atlantic (IODP Exp. 390) collection will also be showcased at the talk.

The remainder of this page is a collection of the resources I used to build my talk, whether it be articles, websites, library image databases, and more. I hope those in attendance at my talk will be inspired to further explore one or more of the topics I discuss.

Resources

Textbook cover, with a hand-drawn image of three men in hardhats on a drilling rig, and the words Scientific Ocean Drilling: Exploration and Discovery through Time

Open Educational Resource (OER) – Scientific Ocean Drilling: Exploration and Discovery through Time, by L. Guertin, E. Doyle, T. Peixoto

Books, ship logs, and articles

These are books and articles I mentioned during my presentation and/or pulled information from, listed alphabetically by author.

  • Bascom, W. (1980). The First Deep Ocean Drilling. In: M. Sears & D. Merriman (Eds.), Oceanography: The Past. Proceedings of the Third International Congress on the History of Oceanographpy. Springer-Verlag. p. 316-324.
  • Campbell, C.C. (1881). Log-letters from “The Challenger”. London: Macmillan. (full text online)
  • Challenger Expedition (1872-1876). Report on the scientific results of the voyage of H.M.S. Challenger during the years 1873-76 under the command of Captain George S. Nares … and the late Captain Frank Tourle Thomson, R.N. (full text of volumes available as PDF files)
  • Deep Sea Drilling Project – University of California, San Diego – Scripps Institution of Oceanography. (n.d.). Scientific Objectives and Highlights. (full text online)
  • Doyle, A.C. (1892, July). The Glamour of the Arctic. The Idler. (full text of magazine article)
  • Doyle, A.C. (1897, January). Life on a Greenland Whaler. The Strand Magazine. (full text of magazine article)
  • Doyle, A. C., Lellenberg, J. (Ed.), & Stashower, D. (Ed.) (2012). Dangerous work: Diary of an Arctic adventure. University of Chicago Press. 368 pages. (publisher site, Google Books preview, full text of Doyle’s log)
  • Evans, N. (2021). The Book of Sea Shanties: Wellerman and Other Songs from the Seven Seas. Welbeck. 177 pages.
  • Fenton, C. (2019). A Cat Called Trim. Allen & Unwin. 32 pages. (Google Books preview)
  • Hayes, D.E., Frakes, L.A., & The Leg 28 Science Party. (1975). Initial Reports of the Deep Sea Drilling Project – Volume 28. U.S. Government Printing Office. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15133233 (full text online)
  • Hess, H.H. (1959, December). The AMSOC hole to the Earth’s mantle. Eos, Transactions American Geophysical Union, Volume 40, Issue 4, p. 340-345. https://doi.org/10.1029/TR040i004p00340
  • Hsü, K.J. (1992). Challenger at Sea: A Ship That Revolutionized Earth Science. Princeton University Press, 464 pages. (publisher site, Google Books preview)
  • Laurence, W.L. (1959, September 6). SCIENCE IN REVIEW: World Oceanographic Congress at U.N. Seeks Clues to Origin of Life. The New York Times, Section E, p. 9.
  • Macdougall, D. (2019). Endless Novelties of Extraordinary Interest: The Voyage of H.M.S. Challenger and the Birth of Modern Oceanography. Yale University Press. 288 pages. (Google Books preview)
  • Moseley, H. (1879). Notes by a naturalist on the “Challenger”, being an account of various observations made during the voyage of H.M.S. “Challenger” around the world, in the years 1872-1876, under the commands of Capt. Sir G. S. Nares and Capt. F. T. Thomson. London, Macmillan and Co. (full text online)
  • Musemeche, C. (2022). Lethal Tides, Mary Sears and the Marine Scientists Who Helped Win World War II. Harper Collins. 320 pages. (Google Books preview, book review)
  • National Research Council. (1965). Report on the U.S. Program for the International Geophysical Year: July 1, 1957 – December 31, 1958. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. https://doi.org/10.17226/26118. (full text online)
  • Pinkerton, B. (2021, March 17). How an ill-fated undersea adventure in the 1960s changed the way scientists see the Earth. Vox. (podcast and article)
  • Powell, J.L. (2024). Mysteries of the Deep: How Seafloor Drilling Expeditions Revolutionized Our Understanding of Earth History. The MIT Press. 274 pages. (publisher site, Google Books preview)
  • Rehbock, P.F. (1993). At Sea with the Scientifics: The Challenger Letters of Joseph Matkin. University of Hawaii Press. 424 pages.
  • Robinson, R., S.Tikoo, P. Fulton. (2024). Sea changes for scientific ocean drilling. Physics Today, 77(2): 28-34. (full text online)
  • Sears, M. (Ed.). (1961). Oceanography; invited lectures presented at the International Oceanographic Congress held in New York, 31 August-12 September 1959. Publication (American Association for the Advancement of Science), no. 67. 676 pages. (full text online)
  • Shor, E.N. (1985). A chronology from Mohole to JOIDES. In: E.T. Drake & W.M. Jordan (Eds.), Geological Society of America Centennial Special Volume 1. Geological Society of America. p. 391-399.
  • Sobel, D. (1995). Longitude – The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time. Penguin Books. 184 pages. (Google Books preview)
  • Spry, W.J.J. (1877). The cruise of Her Majesty’s ship “Challenger”. Voyages over many seas, scenes in many lands. London. (full text online)
  • State Library of NSW (n.d.). Matthew Flinders: Australia on the map. (full text online)
  • Steinbeck, J. (1951). The Log from the Sea of Cortez. The Viking Press. 288 pages. (*published Penguin Classics w/Introduction by Richard Astro, Google Books preview)
  • Steinbeck, J. (1961, April 14). High drama of bold thrust through ocean floor. LIFE Magazine, p. 110-122. (full text online)
  • Truswell, E. (2019). A Memory of Ice: The Antarctic Voyage of the Glomar Challenger. ANU Press. 220 pages. (PDFs of chapters, read online (HTML), Google Books full view, book review)
  • Valentine, S. (2025, July 15). Whaling Records Can Help Improve Estimates of Sea Ice Extent. EOS, 106, https://doi.org/10.1029/2025EO250251 (full text online)
  • Wales, W. (1772-1775). Log book of HMS ‘Resolution’, compiled by William Wales during his passage to the South Seas under the command of Captain James Cook, details the testing of the Larcum Kendall (K1) chronometer. (full text of Wales’ log)
  • Wolfle, D. (1980). The 1959 Oceanographic Congress: An Informal History. In: Sears, M., Merriman, D. (Eds.), Oceanography: The Past. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4613-8090-0_5
Graphic with a drill ship that has a life ring attached, with a microphone hanging off of it, pointing at the bottom of the ocean to the words Tales from the Deep.

Audio, photos, and video

These are videos I showed and/or mentioned during the lecture.

A quilted square with a light- and dark-blue border with a ship in the middle

Websites and blog posts

This list has, in the order of my presentation, links to websites with additional information on various topics.

Person wearing sunglasses and a hardhat on a ship on the ocean, holding an iPad on a tripod

Science communication tools and training