News Release

Austin, TX, Paul Stoffa, director of The University of Texas at Austin Institute for Geophysics, has announced that the Board of Governors of IODP Management International, Inc. (IMI) has invited Manik Talwani to be the first president of IMI. Professor Talwani, who currently holds the Schlumberger Chair for Advanced Studies and Research at Rice University, has accepted the position of president effective January 2004. The IODP (Integrated Ocean Drilling Program), an international partnership of scientists and research institutions organized to explore the evolution and structure of the Earth, began on October 1, 2003. The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sport, Science and Technology (MEXT) of Japan are the Lead Agencies for the IODP; IMI, a not-for-profit corporation, has qualified to fill the role of the central management office for the IODP. Manik Talwani received a Master’s degree in Physics from Delhi University in India. Following that he received his Ph.D. from Columbia University and served as professor of geophysics there through 1982 and as the director of Columbia’s Lamont-Doherty Geological Observatory (now the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory) from 1973 to 1981. He left Lamont to join Gulf Oil Company to serve first as director of the Center for Crustal Studies and then as chief scientist. When Chevron acquired Gulf in 1985, he left Gulf to accept the appointment at Rice and simultaneously he founded the Geotechnology Research Institute at the Houston Advanced Research Center where he served as its director until 1998.

Talwani’s scientific leadership has contributed greatly to our understanding of how oceans and continents evolve. He is known especially for his studies of the Earth’s crust and the dynamics of continental margins and ocean basins. His scientific achievements have been recognized by many honors and awards which include the Krishnan Gold Medal from the Indian Geophysical Union, and the Macelwane and Maurice Ewing awards from the American Geophysical Union (the latter award being given jointly with the U.S. Navy). He has also received the Woollard award from the Geological Society of America, NASA’s Exceptional Scientific Achievement award (for sending the first gravimeter to the Moon), and the Wegener medal from the European Union of Geosciences. Manik Talwani is a member of the Norwegian Academy of Sciences and a Foreign Member of the Russian Academy of Natural Science. In 1981 the University of Oslo in Norway awarded him an honorary doctorate.

“Manik is a widely respected geoscientist with a distinguished record of achievement and service,” said Stoffa, who is currently serving as the interim president of IMI. “Having a strong president in place who can work effectively with the global scientific drilling community to guide the program as it embarks on its first five year phase is a major step forward for the IODP.”

IODP will use new resources and multiple platforms to support technologically advanced ocean drilling research enabling investigation of Earth’s regions and processes that were previously inaccessible and poorly understood. Japan and the U.S. are each contributing a drilling platform. The Japanese vessel, the Chikyu (meaning “The Earth”), will be a state-of-the art, riser-equipped, dynamically positioned drill ship operated by the Japan Marine Science and Technology Center. The second drill ship is a non-riser vessel operated by Texas A&M University through the JOI Alliance. As IODP gets underway, significant scientific and financial participation is also anticipated from Europe which will provide the international IODP community with “mission-specific” platforms for drilling in special environments such as the very shallow-water portions of continental shelves and high-latitude ice-covered seas like the Arctic. Composed of an international membership committed to the IODP, IMI will develop and manage the implementation plans and operations for the science program and services. This will involve (1) coordination with the Science Advisory Structure, Lead Agencies and Implementing Organizations, (2) integrating scientific objectives into an effective operational plan, and (3) making decisions concerning the most efficient means of implementing the program plan. The University of Texas Institute for Geophysics (UTIG) is known internationally as a leading academic research group in geology and geophysics. Founded in 1972, it is a part of the John A. and Katherine G. Jackson School of Geosciences at The University of Texas at Austin. UTIG is a founding member of IMI and as such is involved in the management of the IODP.

LINKS

IMI— http://www.ig.utexas.edu/imi/

IODP— http://www.iodp.org/

UTIG— http://www.ig.utexas.edu

CONTACTS

Dr. Paul Stoffa, director of The University of Texas at Austin, Institute for Geophysics; interim president of IMI. Telephone: 512-471-0464. E-mail: Pauls@ig.utexas.edu

Dr. James A. Austin, Jr., senior research scientist at The University of Texas at Austin, Institute for Geophysics, interim IODP program director. Telephone: 512- 471- 0450. E-mail: Jamie@ig.utexas.edu

Dr. Manik Talwani, Schlumberger professor of geophysics at Rice University. Telephone: 713-348-6067. E-mail: m.talwani@att.net

Dr. Kathy Ellins, program manager of The University of Texas at Austin, Institute for Geophysics. Telephone: 512- 471- 0347/512-346-1280. E-mail: Kellins@ig.utexas.edu