Catherine Mével

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This transcript is based on a video-recorded interview deposited at MarE3, JAMSTEC (Yokosuka, Japan).

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Interview of Catherine Mével by Beatriz Martinez-Rius on 2025 October 2 (virtual). [link]

Beatriz Martinez-Rius (BMR): Today is October 2^nd of 2025. I’m Beatriz Martinez-Rius, historian of science at JAMSTEC, and I’m with Catherine Mével in a virtual interview. Thank you so much for joining me. Can you please tell me your name and your most recent affiliation and position?

Catherine Mével (CM): I’m Catherine Mével. I’m retired, but I used to be a researcher at the CNRS in France. I was affiliated to the IPGP, the Institute de Physique du Globe de Paris.

BMR: Can you explain me, broadly, what has been your involvement in scientific ocean drilling?

CM: Scientific drilling has been really important in my career. I did my PhD on ophiolites in the Alps, on metamorphic pillow lavas. And, just after my PhD, I was contacted by Jean Francheteau, who was a big shot in marine sciences at that time. France had recently joined the DSDP. He called me to ask whether I was willing to participate in a drilling cruise of the Glomar Challenger. They were looking for candidates at the last minute. At the last minute because, at that time, the scheduling of the ship was very informal. You just had a group of scientists who would meet and decide on the track of the ship. This turned out to be the Mega-leg (51-52-53). Originally, there was only one leg scheduled. The  goal was to date and sample the crust, to verify that the age of the crust fitted with the plate tectonic model in the old Atlantic ocean. But it was decided to deepen the holes and two additional legs were scheduled. I was really excited when they invited me, and I accepted.

It was the start of my scientific career as a marine geologist, because this first expedition led me to continue working on the ocean crust. I had studied geology because I liked mountains, but scientifically I understood that active mid-ocean ridges were really the place to study the formation of the ocean crust: I was involved in two other drilling cruises; I was involved in the scientific management of the French ODP; I represented France in many panels; I organized meetings… And then, at the end of ODP – when the IODP phase was being prepared – I was approached by a colleague and friend, John Ludden. They were looking for someone to manage the European Consortium, ECORD, and… I accepted (laughs). I didn’t know what I was going into, but I accepted, so I spent the last 10 years of my career working for ECORD. So, as you can see, I have been involved in the program all my scientific life.

BMR: And actually, from both sides, science and management.

CM: Absolutely.

BMR: Let’s start from your beginning, and then I will ask you questions on all these different programs and positions that you’ve just mentioned. First of all: Where are you from, where did you grow up, and how was your childhood like?

CM: I’m a Parisian (laughs). I was born in Paris and I lived my childhood in the center of Paris. I had a very happy childhood with loving parents, an elder brother, and lots of cousins. It was a modest family – my parents never had a car but on Sundays we used to take the train and go walking in the forests around Paris, swimming in the river Seine – at that time it was possible – so, it was very nice. And also, for holidays, they sent me to summer camps. I went to the Pyrenees and the Alps, started camping, building fires, looking at the stars… And observing. I think that’s a key point. I really started observing nature. And then, when I was a teenager, I started to climb. I became interested in climbing and, close to Paris – you are probably familiar with that – there’s the forest of Fontainebleau, with big sandstone blocks, where Parisians go to practice their climbing. So, I started doing that. And when I was 17, I went to the real mountains and started mountaineering in the Alps.

I think I had a strong attraction for mountains and rocks (laughs), and this probably was important for my future.

BMR: How common was at that time that a young women went mountaineering and climbing?

CM: It was relatively common. It was not something special.

BMR: Were your parents related to science, engineering or teaching?

CM: Absolutely not. No, no. My parents, they both worked in a small family business, a tailoring workshop, making clothes, suits, and they had absolutely no clue on science. But they encouraged me; really encouraged me and my brother, as well, to go to university. Actually, they were very proud of me, because this was something they never thought that their daughter could do. And my father kept saying, “Why do you have to travel so much?” (laughs). So, yeah, it was a nice family.

BMR: What did you study and where?

CM:I studied both, geomorphology at – at that time it was called Paris IV University, so it was attached to Humanities, and also, I studied Geology at Paris VI. This is where I met my advisor, Jean-Robert Kienast. He was an assistant professor at the University Paris VI, and he was an excellent teacher in metamorphic petrology. He was able to explain how a petrologist works like a detective: You collect all the evidences in the rock and at the end, you can have a conclusion. He was also explaining how, by doing petrology, metamorphic petrology, you could have a very important input on understanding the geodynamics of the Earth. I thought it was fascinating, and when I decided to do a PhD, I asked him to do it with him.

BMR: I have a question related to this early career years, and it’s about the framework of plate tectonics. I guess you are talking about those years, maybe a bit later than that.

CM: When I started going to the university at the end of the sixties, it was the beginning of plate tectonics and it was not accepted by everybody. Some people didn’t want to hear about it. But when I was in high school, actually I had a teacher who gave us geology classes – she was a very good teacher and I got completely excited about geology. I was excited about the Pacific Ring of Fire, volcanoes, and also Wegener and continental drift. At that time, it was still debated but I was very much in favor of it; I thought it was really convincing. So, when I arrived at university, I was ready for plate tectonics but some teachers didn’t want to talk about it. It was an interesting time, and I understand that, as a historian, you are interested to see how it went.

For instance, some paleontologists still talked about continental bridges to explain why you have the same species at both sides of the Atlantic Ocean and, to me, that was completely ridiculous (laughs). It was an interesting time. I was very fortunate to come at the right time to start working on mid-ocean ridges, because we knew nothing.

BMR: I understand that, even if some professors didn’t agree with plate tectonics, there were other ones at Paris VI…

CM: Yes, of course. Most did at Paris VI. It was mostly at Paris IV that they were more reluctant. My supervisor, Jean-Robert Kienast he was completely with it because it explained everything. How can you deny a theory that explains everything?

BMR: Right. So, your PhD was on ophiolites from the Alps. Can you please explain me with more detail how you move into marine geosciences?

CM: Ophiolites are pieces of the ocean lithosphere incorporated in mountain belts by plate tectonics, so there is a link between the two. When I did my PhD, I was studying these metamorphic pillow lavas and, as I told you, it was the beginning of plate tectonics but also of the systematic sampling of the seafloor. I started reading papers about the present-day seafloor. I was very much inspired by a paper written by Joe Cann. Anyway, I realized that the metamorphism in the pillow lavas did not happen during the alpine orogenesis. In fact, it was something that really happened at the ridge axis That was an incentive for me to look at rocks from the present-day seafloor, and when Jean Francheteau offered me to get involved in ocean drilling, I was completely excited, of course. That was the link.

BMR: How did you know Jean Francheteau?

CM: I didn’t know him!

BMR: Oh! Okay.

CM: He had heard about my thesis, but I did not know him, at that time. Some colleagues of him told him that, “There’s this woman at Paris VI who just defended a PhD on pillow lavas, so she’s the right person to send”.

BMR: Was he at that time at the US?

CM: No, he was back in France but at CNEXO (the predecessor of IFREMER), in Brest.

BMR: Can you tell me about your first experience in the Glomar Challenger? Probably it was also your first experience going to the US, abroad…

CM: Yes, it was my first experience at sea, my first experience going to the US, my first experience practicing my English – which I had taken at school, but I couldn’t speak, really. And, yeah, it was absolutely great. When you arrive to the Glomar Challenger, it’s like being in the US. All the organization is made by the US, and I even remember that they had pens, and on the pens it was written “US Government property”. I thought that was outrageous, because all the countries were paying for the project, so the pens were belonging to me as well as the US Government (laughs).

The way things were organized, the food, the cookies, the cokes, … Everything was US; So, it was quite interesting. And I learned to speak English. I spoke English with the Texan drillers, so I’m very good at understanding the southern accent (laughs). Yeah, that was quite an experience.

BMR: What do you remember about the day to day life, the relation to people…? Is there any anecdote or memory that you have?

CM: Well, this was in 1977. We were only two women on board: the so-called YEO person, who was in her 50s – she was typing all the reports. You have to realize that, at that time, we had no personal computer, so we had to type – and myself: a young French scientist. But it was interesting, because the people from the crew told me that it’s very good to have a young woman on board because, when men are together, they tend to come up with very bad jokes and so on. But if there’s a woman, they try to behave. And they were also very protective. So, being a woman was not a problem.

In those days, we had a four-hour shift. Now it’s organized differently, we often have a 12-hour shift, which it’s easier to manage but, anyways, in those times it was 4 hours. The ship was very uncomfortable, very noisy, but… Everybody was excited. There was a Russian, because Russia was part of DSDP, and that Russian had been on the previous leg, leg 52, and he was ready to go back, of course, after two months at sea. And at the last minute, he received an instruction from shore to stay because they couldn’t find another candidate. So, he had to stay for another two months. Four months at sea. He was desperate, always looking at the sea… He wasn’t there. He really wanted to go home. And also, when people come onboard, they bring some goodies, and he had nothing left because he had been there for too long. So, this poor guy, he was not happy. But, otherwise, the scientific party was very young because it was put up at the last minute. We had a very good time. And I was the only women of the science party, and people was just nice to me, the young French scientist (laughs).

BMR: The only French and the only women?

CM: Yes because, in those days, the science party was very small. We [France] had only one berth on the ship.

BMR: Is there something that you learned during that cruise that was later useful in your career?

CM: Well, something I understood is that drilling is very different from going in the field, because if you have a good recovery, you have very long continuities of your sampling; while when you are on land, you bang rocks but you never have this continuity. I thought it was very interesting.

I was also impressed by the relationship between the technicians and the scientists and also, the engineers and people who were running the drilling system. Because when you work in the field, you work by yourself, alone. So, it’s a completely different world. And what I really enjoyed also was the multidisciplinary team. I was a petrologist, metamorphic petrologist; you had igneous petrologists, you had people looking at magnetics, and so on. So, I thought that way of doing science was really, really efficient, and I really tried to maintain that during my career, after that.

BMR: How that expedition was influential for the development of your career?

CM: After the expedition, I applied to the CNRS. Originally, I wanted to apply with a project on Alpine ophiolites, and finally I was advised to focus my project on active mid-ocean ridges, where ophiolites form. And so, I was hired by CNRS with a project to study mid-ocean ridges, which meant I would have to work at sea. But on the other hand, I did not have contacts in France. I had never been on a French research vessel; I did not know how to apply for a cruise… It’s completely different, because the drilling program is very official, the way of applying… But to be involved in a cruise in France, you had to know somebody who would invite you. You had to be connected, which I was not. So, it was a big, big step. A big jump into the unknown.

And also, I have to say that I don’t like being at sea (laughs). I hate being on a small research vessel in the middle of the ocean – I think I have spent more than 6 months of my life in the same place, the so-called MARK area on the mid-Atlantic ridge. But you go there, and you don’t know that you are in the same place because there’s no landmarks, there’s anything that you can see and tells you that you are there. That’s something that I don’t like. But I do like being on the ship, because I like the spirit of the cruise; I like to see everyone, from captain to seamen, engineer, scientists… working toward the same purpose to do science. So, fortunately, it was very rewarding in that sense.

BMR: Then, I understand that you started getting involved in French cruises.

CM: Yeah. Actually, I saw a paper coming out by Jean-Marie Auzende, who was not involved in the drilling program. I wrote him a letter and I said, “Could I have some samples”. And he answered, “Why don’t you come? We have a cruise next year, so why don’t you come next year?”.

He was my mentor in organizing cruises. After this cruise, which was on the Gorringe Bank, I sailed on ODP Leg 106 and we discovered – maybe I will talk about this later – we discovered the Snake Pit hydrothermal field. Jean Marie Auzende helped me to develop a proposal for shiptime in France. Of course, for the science, I knew what I wanted, but when you develop a cruise proposal there are all sorts of things that you need to know, and he really helped me to write the project. It was my first cruise as a chief scientist and he came along, to be there and help.   So, I’m really grateful to him. He was very important in my career.

BMR: How was the French scientific community involved in ocean drilling, or even in marine geosciences, at that time?

CM: For the drilling community, we had a big problem in France. I don’t know if you’ve heard about that – Edith Vincent-Lancelot maybe told you about that. The problem was that there was the drilling program (note: the DSDP then ODP) and there was also another program, IMAGES, using the R/V Marion Dufresne, a French vessel equipped with a long coring system. The scientists interested in recent sediments and climate preferred to use the Marion Dufresne because it was a lot faster to get ship time, rather than writing a proposal to submit to the DSDP/ODP. So, we had a big chunk of the community who could have used drilling, but didn’t do it. On the other hand, you have the big community interested in ophiolites and also in tectonics, mountain building, and all of that. Laurent Jolivet and all this people. They understood that moving from land to sea could be interesting for their approach – Laurent Jolivet was involved in many cruises in Japan. And people like Thierry Juteau, who were working in ophiolites, were involved in the drilling program to study present-day mid-ocean ridges. So, we had a very parted community. And at that time, in marine sciences, most people were doing bathymetry and geophysics, but not so many were looking at rocks. It happened in the early 80s, I would say.

BMR: This just made me think about… When I’m talking with Japanese people, or people from countries other than the US, who started with a very small community, there was also the problem of becoming more international. I don’t know what was your experience or views at that time, because from a very young age you were kind of “internationalized”.

CM: (laughs) You are right, in my experience in France at that time, not many people published in English, for instance. And the people working on land, they had their own little area and they were very protective of it; they didn’t want anybody else to come and look. To me, this is something I did not mention, but discovering that you can be in an international framework – of course, you have to write in English if you want to be read. That was very important for me. But, at that time, some people were still very provincial, I would say. Probably not as much as Japan, but yeah, we were.

I guess… It was probably Claude Allègre who pushed the science community to be more open to internationalize and to write in English. I think he was very instrumental in pushing people. You cannot stay in your own little area.

BMR: Let me ask you about the ODP, if there’s nothing else you’d like to add about this period. You mentioned that during the ODP, besides going on an expedition, you were also involved in charge of organizing meetings. How that happened? How did you get a bigger involvement?

CM: At that time, I had started to work on the seafloor. I was interested in what the Ocean Drilling [Program] was doing, and I was also following what was done… I participated in COSOD II (note: Conference on Scientific Ocean Drilling), for instance, which was a scientific meeting to prepare the science plan for the ODP). There was not so many lithosphere-drilling at the beginning of ODP. But a friend of mine, a colleague, Jose Honnorez, was co-chief in [ODP] Leg 106 and he told me, “You should come!”.  I don’t know if that tells you something, but 106 was the first attempt to drill zero-age crust at the mid-Atlantic ridge – so, to drill directly into basalt, which meant that you did not have the sediment to maintain drill pipe. They were testing a new equipment called the “guide-base”, which was there to keep the drill pipe in vertical. So, we were testing this equipment. I was not that interested in fresh basalt, I was more interested in metamorphism, but he told me, “Come, come, because if it doesn’t work, we will do something else in the area and this will be interesting for you”.

So, I did go. And the technology failed so… I think we got 20 meters of basalts (laughs). But then, we had the opportunity to look around and we were looking for something else to do. We discovered the Snake Pit hydrothermal field by attaching a camera at the bottom of the drill pipe – we were doing some surveying with the drill pipe, which was an expensive way of using a drillship – and we did discover this field.

That was my second experience on the drillship but it was on the JOIDES Resolution, so it was different. It was more organized. The program had evolved, for sure. And then, I became somebody who people knew as lithosphere person using the drillship so, I became the French representative to several panels. I was in the Lithosphere Panel; I was member of what was called the Offset Drilling Group – I don’t know if this tells you something.

BMR: Offset? No, I don’t know about it.

CM: The Offset Drilling Group… We realized that we would never be able to drill down to Mohole crust with the JOIDES Resolution, so a few scientists decided to start thinking about another strategy to get samples from the lower crust and the mantle. The idea was to go to places where these rocks are exposed, like big faults in the walls of the actual valleys. We organized a group like to discuss strategies, and we proposed a science plan, with different places to go, and we were very successful in convincing the SAS [Science Advisory Panel]. The leg on the Hess Deep, at the Pacific Ocean, was scheduled and I was asked to be a co-chief on that leg.

We were two women co-chiefs: the other one was Katy Gillis, a young scientist from Canada. We got along very well. Our strategy turned out to be a little complicated, because we were drilling in steep slopes, and there were probably a lot of loose blocks; but we did get some rocks and the cruise was quite successful.

This was my third involvement on the ship, but in parallel I also became the French representative in the Planning Committee. Finally, I became the French representative on the [ODP] Executive Committee.  I had started working in the French ODP Office. First, I became the scientific secretary for the ODP Office with Yves Lancelot. He was the president. That’s why I know Edith [Vincent-Lancelot]. And then, when Yves Lancelot left, I became the president of French ODP. So, you see, I was involved in the science but also, I started to get involved in the management, and it was because I was the President of ODP in France, and the French representative at the international Executive Committee.

BMR: That’s really interesting, actually. I want to talk more about these administrative positions, but let me ask you before about the expeditions. You were co-chief of 147, but before that, you had been twice as member of the science party. How is it like being a co-chief?

CM: Oh, it’s completely different! (laughs) You have to make decisions. There are two differences: First, you need to make decisions, and especially when the drilling is complicated, you can waken up at 3am in the morning, “Oh, we have to severe the drill pipe” or something like that. And the other thing is to keep the momentum in the science party, particularly when the drilling is difficult – and it was at Hess Deep. You also have to make sure that scientists work (laughs). Sometimes they like to talk and talk but are no fulfilling all the obligations – core descriptions, writing reports. And they fight over samples during the sampling parties. Fortunately, that does not happen often, most of them are really dedicated. We had a good science party and that was quite an interesting experience.

You have to make decisions and you interact with the drilling engineers and technicians so, you learn a lot about the drilling process. You make decisions, together with the drilling superintendent, about, first of all, where to locate the hole, how deep you go, but also when you want to log the hole, etc… There are a lot of discussions that you have with the drilling crew that you don’t really appreciate when you are just a scientist working with the cores.

BMR: I understand that becoming a co-chief, almost at the same time that you start in more administrative positions, must be intense.

CM: It is intense, yeah (laughs).

BMR: Is there something, some skill or idea, that you developed or learned as a co-chief that you could later apply to other non-onboard positions?

CM: I think the most important thing I learned was to interact with people; to be able to interact with people. To have good relationships means that you have to take time to listen to what they say. You may not agree, but it’s very important to listen to people and to interact. You should not take your decisions alone. And this is something I’ve always practiced, also on the French research vessel’s cruise where I was the chief scientist. You have to talk to everybody, and this is what I enjoyed, actually. This is also what I enjoyed.

BMR: And then, let’s talk about – there’s so much – can you tell me about the ODP Office in France? How was it like, and what was your role there, your tasks and responsibilities?

CM: The role was, first of all, to organize and advertise the program in France and to inform people of what was going on. The ODP office worked with a Science Committee.  Its role was to identify scientists who wanted to be involved, to decide on who would sail on cruises, who would be a member of the advisory structure and also encourage and help scientists to write proposals.  You would also encourage people to use the core repositories – because you don’t have to sail on a cruise, you can just get samples. So, to be active and promote the opportunities that the drilling program was offering. To make sure that people were aware of that. That was our task, together with the French IODP Science committee.

BMR: Was this office part of the CNRS?

CM: I don’t know what do you mean by part of the CNRS but, of course, it was funded by CNRS and under the responsibility of CNRS. It was a change compared to DSDP when the office was under the responsibility of CNEXO/IFREMER.

BMR: Funded, yes. What was it like to be in the EXCOM [Executive Committee] meetings?

CM: Well, this was a long time ago. The PCOM [Planning Committee] was discussing science, and in particular deciding on what will be drilled. The EXCOM was more talking about money. We had the money and it was making decisions about how the money was used, and approving the PCOM decisions, and so on. But it was much less complicated than when it became IODP.

For instance, I remember I was a member of PCOM or EXCOM, I don’t remember, when Germany came up with the project of building a new core repository in Bremen, and the US were really against that idea. (laughs). So, you had to lobby, to talk to everybody, explain the benefits… That was also part of it. Because it was about using the comingled funds, you had to convince people that it was a good way of using them. I guess the role of EXCOM was really to make sure that the comingled funds were used in the proper way to achieve the science program that was decided by the PCOM.

BMR: This is a bit of side question. In ODP, France was full member, standing by itself, but for the next IODP, it became part of ECORD. Why the decision of changing? I mean, if you stand alone, you have more benefits as member – although I guess you have to provide more money as well.

CM: The reason why… This was sort of John Ludden’s idea. He started lobbying for that in Europe. The difference in IODP is that it was a multiplatform program. We knew that there would be the JOIDES Resolution and Chikyu, and some people in Europe thought, “Why don’t we also become a platform provider, to bring a new facility that could implement cruises that cannot be implemented by the two other ships?”. From this came the concept of alternate platforms – what we call now Mission Specific Platform [MSP]. And to do that, to be able to operate the MSP, you need to have money. So, the idea was to collect the funds from all the European countries, give part of it to IODP, but keep a large chunk of it to operate the MSPs. In addition, the idea was that the European Commission could also participate financially and increase our budget. There were positive signals from the EC at the beginning.  But also, it was thought – and I agreed absolutely –that in a program like that, if you come alone, of course you are independent but you have less strength because you are small. But if you come as a big group, you can negotiate stronger than you do if you are alone.

It’s interesting, because Canada – maybe we will talk about this later – Canada had been a member of the ODP.  I don’t know what happened but at some point, when they decided to join IODP, instead of joining directly, they decided to join through ECORD. Canada became a member of ECORD because they thought that they could have more weight in the program, because ECORD could talk in their name rather than being just a regular member. I think they were paying 300,000 dollars, or something like that so, you have no weight at all.

BMR: This is also a side question. I’ve read about the Nereis project, that was led by France. Could you tell me more about that?

CM: The Nereis project was a project pushed by Yves Lancelot. Yves’ idea was that European countries should build a second “light” drillship that would be used to drill recent sediments and complement the JOIDES Resolution.  Yves was one of the users of the Marion Dufresne for the long cores. He was interested in recent climate change. And he was saying that, “It’s not necessary to use a big drillship like the JR to drill the upper sediments. A light drillship will be sufficient”. Operating a light drillship like this would be cheaper and it would leave more time to the JR to do other programs. This was Yves’ idea. It was a good idea; unfortunately, it’s always a matter of money (laughs). The US, NSF, were very much against this project because they thought that if we give money to the Nereis, this money would not go to ODP. Even the scientists were not too convinced, except for the few potential users. Of course, you have to operate the ship, so it is not only building it. This project never happened, but to some extent it was a kind of preview of what happened with IODP – another platform. So, he was visionary (laughs). He was a great guy, very visionary and enthusiastic.

BMR: I’ve heard and read about him, but I didn’t have the chance to meet him. Can you tell me about the creation of ECORD and what was your role in that?

CM: The creation of ECORD, as I said, was moved from John Ludden who started talking to other colleagues in Europe. At that time, John – I think you interviewed John, right? – he was the Director for Earth Sciences at CNRS. He was the one responsible for the Ocean Drilling Program at the management level. He was pushing for ECORD for the reason I told you – because it was important that Europe could become a platform provider to have more weight in the program. He was hoping to get additional substantial funding for ECORD platform operations.  And also, to talk to the others, Japan and the US, with only one voice, to have also more weight. He had approached the European Commission At first, he was able to get a support program called JEODI (Joint European Ocean Drilling Initiative). Have you heard about this program?

JEODI was just glue money to help him start talking to people, organize scientific meetings to promote alternate platforms, and work towards the creation of ECORD. I was not involved in JEODI, but JEODI started to think in the basis of the structure of ECORD, to have an ECORD Council, to have the ECORD Management Agency, and also the ECORD Science Operator. So, they started thinking who could do that. For the ECORD Council it was obvious – representatives from the funding agencies. But for the Management Agency and for the Science Operator, they had to decide who would run these offices. It was decided that EMA [ECORD Management Agency] would be run by CNRS in France, and that CNRS would pool all the funds from all the countries. And that it would be the BGS [British Geological Survey] who would run the Science Operator.

So, John started thinking who could become the EMA director and, of course, John was a colleague but also a friend, and one day he calls me and asks, “Do you want to do that?”. I didn’t realize what it meant, I didn’t realize how much time would take, and I did not realize what the new program would be. But I was at that time in my career where I thought, “Why not accept a new and exciting challenge?” So, I said ‘yes’ (laughs). And it’s only after that, that I realized it was actually a fulltime job. So, I had to walk away from science and it was a big, big move from.

BMR: That was exactly the question I had in my mind – if you were able to combine science and administration. But as you just said, it was impossible.

CM: Well, it’s not completely true because I convinced the ECORD Council that, because CNRS was paying for my salary, I should have a kind of compensation. This compensation was a postdoc salary. They gave me a postdoc salary and I was able to have several postdocs during my time, and they were very good. So, I did some science with them. But a postdoc is not like a PhD student – they are sort of autonomous. Of course, my postdoc also sailed on the JR, because it was part of the deal – they had to be involved in the program.

BMR: Yeah, that sounds great. What was the role of EMA about? What were your tasks there?

CM: I can say that there were two separate tasks. The first one was to collect the funds, the ECORD funds, manage the funds in Europe, and implement the ECORD council decisions. And the other task was to represent Europe in all the decision-making meetings at the international level.

BMR: To represent Europe sounds like a very wide thing… Like something very challenging, actually.

CM: Well, it’s interesting because, at the beginning the ECORD Council, I have the feeling that they considered me as – you know, you listen and you do what you are told to do. But rapidly, trust started to develop between me and the ECORD Council, and they really trusted me. In general, when I went to these big decision meetings, like developing a memorandum or making decisions about money at international level, the chair of ECORD came with me, together with one or two members of the ECORD Council. Yeah, we had a very good relation with the ECORD Council. It was rewarding for me, that I felt that they trusted me. They were happy with what I was doing, so it was rewarding.

For the management of the money, we had a lot of problems, because it was moving money around from country to country to pay for the operations to ESO [ECORD Science Operator], to collect the money from different countries – some of them were not even EU members, like Norway or Switzerland. So, we had a lot of complications. One of the main issues that I realized just at the beginning of ECORD was that the CNRS, who was actually keeping the money for us, for administrative reasons, could not have an account in dollars. They had an account in euros, but all the money I collected was in dollars and, when it arrived in France, it was turn into euros. And I couldn’t sleep, because with the fluctuations of the exchange rate, our amount of money kept changing. It was absolutely horrible. So, with John we went to the CNRS, “That’s not possible”. And we went, and went, and went; and finally, we were able to open – I don’t know if it was the first one, but probably one of the first USD accounts at CNRS. And I could sleep peacefully (laughs).

BMR: Can you remind me who was at the ECORD Council? You mentioned funding agencies?

CMR: Yeah, the ECORD Council was composed of representatives from funding agencies, because the ECORD Council was making decisions about how implement the recommendations of the scientific committee with the money we had, essentially. In reality, some were really the representatives of funding agencies, like in the UK, in Germany, in France… But in smaller countries, often the funding agency delegated scientists so, we had some scientists also in the ECORD Council. But they were not there as scientists, but as representatives of their own funding agencies.

The first thing the Council had to do was to finalize the ECORD MOU (Memorandum of Understanding) which defines the rights and obligations of every member country and the management structure. The council had a number of meetings around Europe to come to an agreement. You have to realize that there were three major countries (France, Germany and UK) and a number of “smaller countries” which were afraid of losing their influence. The first decisions was “one country, one voice, independently of their financial contribution, which helped. The MOU defined the role of EMA, ESO and also ESSAC, the scientific committee. Of course, if you pay less, you get less in particular in term of berths on the platforms. If I remember correctly, at the beginning, the contribution varied from 30,000$ to 3.5 M$ ! This was understood by the council, but generated some frustration at the scientist level. But in general it went smoothly and finally, the ECORD MOU was signed in Paris, on Dec 15th, 2023, between 12 member countries: Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Italy, Netherland, Norway, Portugal, Sweden, Switzerland, UK). Other countries joined later (Austria, Belgium, Canada, Ireland, Poland, Spain) and when I left, ECORD has increased up to 18 member countries.

And then, the Council had to negotiate the Memorandum with the US (NSF) and Japan (MEXT). That was more challenging. Because of its smaller financial contribution, ECORD was only able to obtain the status of “Contributing Member” while the US and Japan were the “Lead Agencies”.  I am sure we will talk about SOCs and POCs later. The principle was that platform providers would pay for their platform operations (POCs) while the comingled funds would pay for science operations (SOCs). Of course, the Lead Agencies wanted ECORD to contribute as much as possible to the co-mingled funds, but ECORD needed to keep enough money to operate MSPs, there was a balance to find.  And the discussions were not only about money, but also berths on the ships, ECORD representatives on panel, etc… Anyway, we were able to come to an agreement and the memorandum was signed in Bremen on March 16th, 2004.

BMR: And you mentioned that, at the beginning, between you as EMA Director and the Council, there were maybe some points of disagreement?

CM: No, no. Between me and the Council there was not a disagreement. It was just at the beginning… Some of the council members considered me as just somebody to implement their decisions, and not having my independent thinking and being able to bring some advice, and so on. It was nothing against me, it’s the way they thought about the organization.

BMR: I see, okay. This has made me thing on how IODP works versus other kinds of international programs, in the sense that maybe funding agencies are more used to try to influence on how the money is used. And in IODP it goes all the way around – scientists start requesting what they want, and the funding agency provides the money for that.

CM: Yeah, but you have a limited amount of money, so even if scientists come up with exciting ideas, you have to decide which one will be implemented. So, you see… No, I don’t really see a big difference. It’s always the same. The scientists are bringing in incredibly good ideas through the SAS.  But the amount of money is fixed by the memorandum. So the implementation has to remain within this budget.

BMR: Talking about money and funding-related topics, how did the support of France to IODP, or ocean drilling more broadly, evolved during your involvement? How did you witness that?

CM: I will start with the ODP. When I was the president of ODP – I forgot when it was… in the late-90s – of course, all big programs have reviews, and we had a mid-term review. We had to produce a document saying what we had achieved, and so on. The review turned out to be very negative, and the conclusion was that France should terminate its participation to the program. I was very angry. The reason for that was, there were a few influential people in Earth sciences in France who wanted to kill the ODP, to get the money for their own science. Unfortunately, these people were very influential, but fortunately, we were able to fight against this people, and specifically with the help of Xavier le Pichon. He was really supportive of ODP and was on our side; I was not very influential at the Ministry level, but Xavier le Pichon, obviously he was. He was the one who really helped us to remain in the program. This was during ODP.

It was always difficult in France to get the money for the drilling program. The drilling program was not funded by Earth Sciences; it was funded by the CNRS large facilities – It’s called TGIR [Très Grandes Infrastructures de Recherche]. So, it’s a completely different pot of money. This is also why Xavier le Pichon was successful, because even if they killed the ODP, the money would not have stayed in Earth Sciences. So, there was no gain. You have to fight. It’s a very small program, compared to large equipment like telescopes and the synchrotron – large facilities like that. It’s good to be small because you don’t need much money, but because you are small, you don’t have much visibility. So, we always had to fight within this large-equipment committee. And actually, the contribution of France decreased a little during my time, and I think it continued decreasing, after I left. We always had some difficulties.

BMR: How did you try to convince? What were the arguments to continue with the program, besides the point of, you know, the money won’t go to Earth Sciences anyway?

CM: Of course, it was the science plan and the fact that we had a community behind the science plan keen to have access to this facility. There is a big ambiguity with the drilling program because, at the same time, it’s a facility – it’s just a tool that people want to use – but there is a science program attached to it. When you want to go to – I don’t know about the telescope, but to the synchrotron, there is no science program. You just submit your project, it’s evaluated by the science committee, and it’s done or not. But in the drilling program, it’s like a tool but you have to be in the frame of the science program. And, of course, when you want to defend the program, you come with the science program and you say, “Look, there are a lot of French scientists who are interested, we have a lot of French proposals”, and so on. It is the way to approach our funding agencies and tell them that there is a big interest in the community. But also the driling program is very good in helping young scientists to develop an international network.

BMR: How did the community change or evolve, during your time as EMA Director?

CM: Oh, we had a good community in France. We had a number of French proposals implemented, a number of co-chiefs… It was not much of a problem. And also, the IMAGES program was terminated. It was an international program attached to the Marion Dufresne called IMAGES – I don’t know if you’ve heard about it – to collect long core of sediments around the world to study recent climate changes. This program stopped and it got more difficult to get the Marion Dufresne so, some of the climate people moved to the JR. So, yeah, we had a good community, especially on hard rocks, ocean ridges and tectonics… That’s where we had the most impact, I would say. Maybe some people would say something else – I’m a hard rock person, so I’m biased (laughs).

BMR: Going back to the fact that you were sort of the European partners representative, what were the main challenges of being part of such an international organization?

CM: You know, I was EMA, the managing agency. At the IODP level, I was representing ECORD in the decision-making at the higher level in how to spend the money, and so on. I had no influence on the science program. At the ECORD level, the science part of ECORD was managed by ESSAC; we had the Science Committee – you’ve heard about that, I’m sure –, so it was not my task to make science decisions. My task was to make sure that the ECORD council decisions were implemented, both at the organizational and funding level. It was more at the executive level, rather than at the science level. But, as EMA, I was invited to ESSAC and to most of the high-panel meeting of the SAS, like the SciCOM, because it was important for me to see what kind of science it was asked for, and the impact on MSP operations.  

BMR: What was the part you enjoyed the most, about this position? And what was the part that you disliked the most?

CM: (laughs) First of all, I thought being on an international program is really interesting, because you see that the cultures are very different. And you try to see how people function, and to see how you can talk to them, to sort of have an impact. It really varies from country to country. Of course, between the US and the Japanese it’s a totally different story. That’s something I really enjoyed, because I like people, I like interacting with people.

The other thing was that I was able to take part in all these scientific meetings, and I learned a lot. I really learned a lot about the science that was going on; I participated in many of the science meetings.  They had meetings to explain what they had done, what they had achieved, and so on. I really, really learned a lot – outside of my hard rock expertise. But I enjoyed the international spirit of the project.

BMR: And the most difficult, the toughest part?

CM: The difficult part was negotiation with the lead agencies, because ECORD was not considered as equal. We did not bring enough money, so when we negotiated the Memorandum with the US and Japan, we were not given the status of lead agency. There were two lead agencies, and ECORD managed to negotiate the status of “Contributing Member”. But what was difficult is that the lead agencies talked to each other – they had difficulties to talk together, but they talked to each other and came up with a decision, and then they came to us. That was complicated, because we had the feeling that we didn’t have our say – but, on the other hand, we paid less so it was understandable. So, when we negotiated the memorandum, our big justification was the intellectual contribution of ECORD scientists. It’s true, they had a great intellectual contribution to the program, but it doesn’t help you to pay the bills. So, for the lead agencies – well, intellectual contribution okay, but… Money, money, money. But I have to say that ECORD got a good deal.

BMR: Something else that you mentioned is about cultural differences. Specially in management or negotiation, in the ways of relating to people… Is there something that surprised you about the relationships with Japan or the US?

CM: Yeah, it was completely different. In the US, the person who was representing the NSF when we negotiated the Memorandum to create the IODP was Margaret Leinen. Margaret Leinen was a former scientist involved in the drilling program; she knew everything about the program and also, we felt that she really had some responsibility. She could make decisions. On the Japanese side, we were talking to MEXT – I’m sure you know what it is because you live in Japan. MEXT, they didn’t know anything. The people we had didn’t know anything about the drilling program. The first MEXT representative had been in forestry. He had no clue about going to sea or whatever. And also, we had the feeling that he was not really responsible. He had to report to higher people in the hierarchy, so it made it a little difficult to relay on making decisions like that. So, yeah, it was really difficult.

I think it evolved. The Japanese learned fast, and they became more aware of the project. Now it’s completely different. But I also have to say that in the US, the people we talked to at our level, like Margaret Leinen or other people, were very understanding of what is to have an international program. Like Rodey Batiza – I think you also interviewed him – they were very much in favor of having an international program, of mixing scientists and so on. But above them, it was a completely different attitude. I remember attending to the launch of the JOIDES Resolution after the refit. You’ve probably heard that there was a refit like for three years, and after that they launched a completely refitted vessel in Hawaii. They invited representatives from all the member countries, and I went there with several members from ECORD. There was a big shot of NSF, there, and he hardly talked to us. He was absolutely uninterested by Europe. It’s like, we did not exist. (laughs). I was really shocked. This was at the highest level, not at the level of the people we normally talked to, but you could sense that, yeah, they were really US-oriented. Not as much as now, but (laughs) even at that time, they were. While the Japanese were more… They were willing to learn; they were more open.

BMR: And in retrospect, looking back at your time in IODP, what decision should have been made differently? And what was a good decision to move forward?

CM: I think, first of all, the decision of ECORD to implement Missions Specific Platforms was an excellent one. Not only because we were more important, but also because we delivered very good science, like the Arctic, like Tahiti… So, it was an excellent decision.

I think the structure of IODP was too complicated, because you had three platforms; you sort of multiplied the decision-making panels not by three but almost by three; people were traveling all the time – I don’t want to think about my carbon footprint during these years… And also, sometimes I was attending meetings and I had the feeling that people were spending most of their time checking their emails or responding to the emails. I thought that, “Why do you come here, if it’s to check your emails?”. The structure was really too complicated. We had this division between SOCs and POCs – have you heard about that? Science Operation Costs and Platform Operation Costs. I think this made things too complicated, also. Probably, having just a small chunk of money to organize the SAS meetings would have been enough and then, leaving all the responsibility to the platform operators. I think that would have been easier.

And seen from us, for instance, the SOCs were managed by IODP-MI [IODP Management International], as you probably know. And we, as ECORD, we had no real… Not control, but we were not really involved in the IODP-MI decisions. For instance, we had the feeling in Europe – maybe people will tell you differently in the US-side – but we had the feeling that the USIO (US Implementing Organization) was a kind of fortress with I don’t know how many people working there, like a hundred or something like that, that had to be… We couldn’t touch it, and it was very costly. We had no say. It was not our business. So, I think… I think it would have made thinks lot easier not to have this SOCs and POCs.  Maybe have you heard that before?

BMR: Yeah. These SOCs and POCs seem to have been the nightmare of everyone who was involved in the management of the first IODP.

CM: Yeah. For instance, at the beginning, we had to send money to IODP-MI, and then IODP-MI had to send the money back to ESO [ECORD Science Operator]. Finally, we were able to negotiate that we would send the money directly to ESO and deduct the money from our contribution to IODP-MI. But all this money was moving from all parts of the world and it took time.

BMR: What happened towards the end of the first IODP? What was your role in the decisions for transforming the program?

CM: Uhm… You know that the lead agencies, the US and Japan, at the end were not in good… They had a very difficult relationship. Even at some point, the US didn’t want to hear about Japan anymore. They wanted to kick Japan out of the program – and I was not aware. They didn’t tell me. So, suddenly, I was going to a meeting and I received this message saying that. How can you make a decision like that and not telling us?

I think I had a role in trying to reconcile the two lead agencies, and make sure that the whole Integrated Program would continue. But also, I guess… Well, I don’t know. That’s what I have to say. I don’t know what you’ve heard about that (laughs).

BMR: I’ve heard some things, yeah, but I was asking more about your position. Why did you stop being part of EMA?

CM: Oh, because I retired. I was at CNRS and I had to retire at 65. I had no choice. Otherwise, I would like to have stayed and finish my job.

But I have another story of how NSF behaved. One day, I forgot which year, we got a message from the NSF saying, “We have to change the name of the program”. It was called the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program. “We cannot keep the word ‘drilling’”, because it was just after this accident in the gulf of Mexico with the drilling oil platform burnt, and it caused a lot of pollution and so on, and some people did not want to be associated with that. So, they decided, “We have to remove the word drilling”.

NSF organized a meeting with the lead agencies to decide on the new name. I was really mad. I thought, “This is not something we should do. We are drilling!”. We had a meeting in Bremen, and most of the people participating were willing to keep the acronym, to make sure that at least the acronym would stand. We came up with the “International Discovery Program” which doesn’t mean anything – Discovery? What is Discovery? So, I was really angry. I was really angry because it was a unilateral decision by NSF. They didn’t even ask us.

BMR: It probably had to do mostly with the perception of the program in the US…

CM: Yeah, but you should be able to… That’s what they said, if you talk to your congressman or your neighbors about drilling, they associate you to oil industry, and because of the oil industry accident to pollution. We know that oil industry has problems and so on but, you know, you should be able to say what you do. And we have been doing that for 20 or 30 years so, why change the name? (laughs). When we had the meeting, some people had suggested some funny names – I don’t remember them – but we wanted to keep IODP acronym because IODP was known. ODP, IODP, is about the same; but completely change the acronym was completely stupid. Fortunately, we were able to convince everybody. But I’m still angry about that – what does it mean, “Discovery Program”?

BMR: Now, the “Drilling” is back. The acronym is again “Drilling Programme”.

CM: Oh, it’s back?

BMR: IODP³ is a “Drilling Programme”.

CM: Oh, I’m pleased! I didn’t know that! This will make my day! (both laugh).

BMR: Yes. And the spelling of “Programme” has changed to the British spelling.

CM: Ah, with two ‘m’. It’s funny because when I started working with the British when they were the science operators, they always wrote “program” with two ‘m’ and an ‘e’. And it was a kind of, “I want to show that I’m British, (laughs) I’m not US”. But to me, that doesn’t matter – two ‘m’ and an ‘e’ or one ‘m’, it doesn’t matter. But Drilling or Discovery – Discovery, what is Discovery? (both laugh)

BMR: I totally understand. So, you retire when the new program…?

CM: Before. I retired in 2012 and, in 2011, we had an overlap with my successor [note: Gilbert Camoin as EMA Director]. But then, I completely… I walked away and I didn’t want to interfere with what he was doing, and I think he didn’t want me to be around. So, I completely stopped to be involved. I became an emeritus researcher, and I started to go back to my lab, to look in the microscope, and to sail on several cruises. I sailed on three cruises, so that was really good.

BMR: After turning 65?

CM: Yes, between 65 and 75, for ten years as an emeritus (laughs). Also, I did something which probably came from my experience with the drilling program. I convinced the IPGP to build a repository for rocks – not for cores, but for rocks – because at IPGP we had a strong marine group and we had collected a lot of marine samples, but they were everywhere. So, I convinced the director of IPGP to build this rock repository, and I organized everything. This is my legacy to marine sciences at IPGP. And I’m very, very pleased that they did it, because all the rocks are catalogued and you can request a sample… Exactly like in core repositories. So, this was an example that it influenced me in my thinking.

BMR: That’s actually a great idea. In terms of legacy, what do you think has been your most important contribution to scientific ocean drilling? Of course, I understand that ECORD was a collective effort…

CM: You mean, myself or ECORD?

BMR: Yourself. In the sense of, what are you most proud or satisfied with, that you’ve done in IODP or ECORD?

CM: Well, I guess… I guess I was not alone, I was with the Council, but I was the one who was most influential in putting all the things together. That was really rewarding, because I was working for the science community. So, just to create this structure, to make it work and, again, I was not alone but I was fulltime, so you spend much more time than the others. I’m very proud of that, because ECORD was… It had a very important scientific contribution with the MSPs to the science of the program. I think it was great.

BMR: What do you consider that has been the most important or valuable that you take from your involvement in scientific ocean drilling, looking at your entire career?

CM: You mean, scientifically?

BMR: It can be in any direction – scientifically or personally.

CM: Scientifically, I think this… I told you about the offset drilling strategy. I think that was a big step forward scientifically, to implement that idea, because we knew – and I still think that it is true that we were not going to drill all the crust down to Moho for technical reasons. It was a way of getting access to the lower crust and Mantle, and I did participate in that. It was a combination of the drilling program, also with other type of cruises, a lot of mapping and sampling with submersibles, and so on, to document the seafloor. But there was really a kind of good match between people who was using these tools, and people from the drilling program. It resulted in many, many expeditions, which were very successful. So, I consider that I was a little part of this move. And I think that, if you look at the legacy of the program, it’s a big chunk of what has been achieved by the drilling program – of course, it’s not the only one, but… This would be my contribution as a science person.

As a manager, I guess I played a role in the setting up of ECORD… And a little role in making the relationship between Japan and the US go a little smoother, but… (laughs) Well.

BMR: And how about the most valuable thing you got, in the personal side? The thing that you remember as more important for your life, so to speak – not that much in terms of contribution, but what you received.

CM: What I received was to meet a lot of people from various countries, with whom I have kept relationship and friendship. That’s really rewarding, to learn about the culture… To apprehend how it works in other countries… I think the international spirit of the program was very important – even if I had some frustrations with some of them (laughs).

BMR: That’s part of personal relationships, right? How does it feel to see the program continuing, transforming for this decade that you have not been involved? After the huge involvement you had.

CM: Well, I definitely kept a distance. Maybe it was… Also, because it was a little sad to stop, so maybe I didn’t want to continue seeing all this people and… Maybe it was part of my personality, to stay [away]… But what I saw, even if I kept a distance, I saw the difficulties that the program was facing. Now, I’m not very aware of what’s going on, but I know that the JR is dead… It makes me very sad, because it was an incredibly exciting program, and to see it falling apart, to some extent, is very sad to me. But I think, also, that the model that we had developed with ECORD was a very good one. Because when you don’t have too much money, you don’t have to maintain the ship all year round You just contract the ship you need when you need it. Of course, it’s not that easy, because you need to find the right ship, maybe that’s more expensive, you don’t have all the facilities that you have on a research vessel that is dedicated; but I think it’s a good model. And I understand that it’s something that will be pursued in the future. So, in a sense, I think, I keep telling you that MSPs were really, really the bright idea of John and his colleagues at the beginning of ECORD. It was not my idea at all (laughs). It was already there when I arrived.

BMR: Ideally, where would you like to see ocean drilling going in the next 10-20 years?

CM: It’s an interesting question. I think, you know, when ocean drilling started, we knew absolutely nothing. Every cruise found incredible things. As it evolved, we knew much more, and breaking-news discoveries were not so common. It became more incremental science, and not so much breaking, big discoveries. So, maybe we don’t need as many cruises as we used to have, but you need to really focus on exciting topics. And, to me, what came from IODP in my time was the deep biosphere. That was one of the topics I thought it was really new and exciting. I’m totally ignorant, but I thought that that’s the direction the program should focus on. I don’t know if it is the plan, but… the Japanese are much involved in that, actually.

But going back to ocean basins and continue drilling ocean sediments, I thought we have sort of been around the question.  For mid-ocean ridges, we always faced the technological difficulties, and it’s not that easy to achieve what we would like to achieve. Actually, I was very pleased when the JR drilled this long hole in serpentinite – I forgot the number of it – because this is something I had defended from the beginning. I remember being in a workshop somewhere, I think it was in the UK, and saying, “Why don’t we start directly on serpentinites?”. We drilled at Hess Deep, but the slope was too steep and there was not enough stability. But there, they were able to drill a kilometer of serpentinites.

BMR: And you were there.

CM: No, I was retired (both laugh). But I’ve also heard that they used Chikyu as a facility for the description of the cores – I thought it’s an expensive way of using the Chikyu.

BMR: Uhm. That was one of the expeditions that could not happen because of Covid.

CM: Yeah. But this Chikyu… what’s happening to the Chikyu? I’m asking the question now.

(chatting about IODP³ and the mode of operation, with flexible expeditions and Chikyu as one more MSP.)

CM: This was also the beauty of MSPs, that there is not a fixed time. The USIO, in my mind, became very bureaucratic and it was just two months, two months [expedition]. But I understand it, of course, because you have a ship that runs all year around, so it has on all the crew, and so on. It becomes very heavy. But with MSPs, you are exactly taking the time you need, you try to find the ship you need… Although it is something that turned out to be difficult, but ESO was very good.

That’s something I didn’t mentioned, but we had big hopes at the beginning of IODP, with the JR running twelve months a year, Chikyu I think was running six months, or something like that, and the MSPs, once a year.  But we never had the money to do that. So, we had to decrease our expectations and also… Face reality.

(chatting)

CM: It was sort of in the question, but the budget is something very political. You asked what was the difference between being involved as scientists or as science manager. The science manager is finding the money to implement what the scientists want, and then it becomes political. It’s completely political. As I mentioned, at the beginning of ECORD, we were hoping to get money from the European Commission. At the beginning, the European Commission supported us with this JEODI project, but it was little money. And then, with this ECORD-Net project. The ECORD-Net project was given to us to help prepare a big proposal to get substantial money to pay for the drilling operations. But we were never funded for that. The European Commission did not fund that, and I understood that it was very political. It was because we did not have the support of the French government, the German government… It was really at the very, very high level.

Then, we tried again with another proposal for the European Commission, for which I worked with Achim Kopf, who is in Germany. We developed a project called Deep-sea and Sub-seafloor Frontier, and we got some money to prepare for a big proposal on the European infrastructure for drilling and for exploring the seafloor. But, again, we got the money for the preparatory phase, but never the big money for the implementation. And it’s really at the very high-level of the government, that it blocks. So, that’s the frustrating part of the management, because you know what you want to do, but you don’t have – your hands are sort of tied because you need the money from above, and this money is very political. I was frustrated to talk to the French Ministry, also (laughs). We don’t live in the same world.

BMR: One question that keeps coming to my mind all time, when talking about budget, is why [scientific ocean drilling] is not that interesting? I feel that you talk about space science or particle accelerators, and they get much more political attention than ocean drilling.

CM: I don’t know! We thought about that. We thought about that, and I don’t know. I frankly don’t know. Well, probably, the space is more… (laughs) you dream about the space. Right now, there’s a strong interest for the seafloor, which is new. It’s something which developed in the last, really, ten years or something like that. When we started, nobody was really interested in these dark waters. So, there’s a strong interest in the seafloor, but I don’t think… people realize that drilling is attached to understanding to what the seafloor is made of. It’s more like, they are interested in resources, animals, in biology, and stuff like that but, rocks? Rocks are not very sexy – except to me (laughs).

You know, in your question, you asked me why I choose to do what I did; petrology… I don’t know, I just like rocks (both laugh). When I started geology, I liked rocks, so of course I became a petrologist.

BMR: You are not the first person I meet that just likes rocks, but it’s true that it’s more difficult to explain that rocks are interesting to someone that is not into geology.

CM: Yes, [that they are] exiting. They tell you so much.

(chatting)

BMR: Yes, but we should probably do a better job in communicating the excitement.

CM: Yeah, probably. At ECORD, we also have these core replicas and we have one of the KT boundary. It’s spectacular, but you are right, it’s spectacular for me, but for someone who don’t have a clue of anything, you have to explain… We have done that in several instances with some success. But it takes times and money.

BMR: Yes, it requires explanation.

CM: But, yeah. I spent some time now, that I’m completely retired, giving some conferences to the general public. And I gave a conference – I have a house in the countryside, not very far from Paris – and I gave a talk on the geology of the area. I thought about it for a very long time, because this people don’t have a clue – you know, they are farmers and whatever. I think I was not too bad, but it gave me a really hard work to try to find the right words and raise their interest. I saw some people talking about the geology of the “Basin Parisien”, which is where I am, and they showed a stratigraphic column. People don’t care. They don’t understand.

BMR: That’s the challenge of geology.

CM: And even telling people that when you see a geological map, in most cases the colors are not rocks but they are ages, that’s also something that it’s really difficult to explain. So, it made me think a lot about that.

When I was working for EMA, we tried to develop some materials to explain – the core replicas were one of those. But, yeah, if you go to EGU and AGU – we went every year and we had a booth of the drilling program. If you compared the booth of the drilling program and the booth of NASA… (laughs)

BMR: Yeah, I’ve seen it.

CM: But NASA has a lot of money, so they could give a lot of videos, brochures and goodies and whatever. The drilling program…

BMR: Someone told me that the budget of NASA for only outreach is equivalent to the entire budget of IODP for one year.

CM: I’m not surprised (both laugh). That’s obviously one reason why we were not so efficient in convincing the funding agencies that we are important. But, is it more important to know how the surface of Mars is, or how the bottom of the ocean is? I would say for the second.

BMR: Yeah. I mean, of course, there’s a historical heritage in this, in the sense that, in the 1950s and 1960s, the space got much more attraction…

CM: It’s true, but it was also a political issue. Who would be the first country to go to the Moon and so on.

BMR: Yes, of course.

CM: Because of this political issue, the US put a lot of money into NASA, and I think it has continued since.

BMR: Yeah. So, is there anything else that you want to add or explain, that I have not asked you?

Yeah, there’s something I would like to explain – the way that MSPs were run. Because you rent a bare ship with no science facilities… I’m willing to talk about that because these were the problems we faced at the beginning of ECORD, because it was totally new. It was like, out of the blue. Of course, it was ESO’s job, but because I was there, we talked a lot about it.

You have to contract a platform, so you need to find a platform. And we rapidly realized that the availability of platforms was dependent on the price of oil. If the price of oil was high, all the platforms were used, so it was almost impossible to find a platform. But if it was low, the companies owning the platforms were very pleased to rent it to scientific programs. This was something which I had not really envisioned before, how dependent you are on oil industry. The second issue was that, you arrive on a platform that is bare and has very few berths, because it’s a small ship in general. So, ESO had to come up with a new scheme for cruises, which was completely different from the way the US operated. They had to develop a new scheme, and they had to divide the operations between two phases, offshore and onshore. There was an offshore science party, and an onshore science party. You know all that, I suppose.

BMR: I know, but it’s totally perfect that you explain it, because your interview is a standalone interview. So, it’s perfectly and good that you explain your experience.

CM: Okay. So, the offshore science party is reduced because you don’t have much space – except for the first cruise, the Arctic cruise, because they had the side ship, the Oden. But, otherwise, you have a very small ship so, you have a very small science party. You have to sail the individuals who have to make the measurements that cannot wait, or that can help you make decisions during the cruise. You have this very small science party, which is okay, although some people were little disappointed not to sail.

But then, you have the onshore science party, and there was no experience in that. ESO decided to use MARUM and the core repository in Bremen as the place to have the onshore science party, because they had the facilities to make all the standard measurements that were required. But then, this came with some practical organization. The first science party was really difficult, because the living conditions were not comfortable. It is something you accept at sea, but nor on land. People had to share rooms and so on and complained. And also, the problem with the onshore science party is that you are not at sea, so you cannot prevent people from leaving. So, they were people who got tired or “my cousin is getting married,” or whatever, and they left. They just left. Fortunately, I think the ESO as well as the scientists got used to it, and it became fairly standard and understood. But it was quite an experience, to set up the scheme.

BMR: Probably when you have an onshore party you realize what is important about being at sea, right? Because of the relations that are established when you are isolated in the ship.

CM: Yes. But also, there was the necessity for an education for the marine group at the BGS, who was in charge of the operation, because the team had no experience in the drilling community – of course, they had a lot of experience in running ships, and in participating in drilling cruises and so on, but they did not have this… How can I say, the “ODP culture”. It means to communicate constantly with the scientists; you are there to provide the scientists with what they want. You need to communicate about all the problems, or decisions, or whatever. And they were not used to that. So, during the first cruise, the Arctic cruise, there was a lot of tension between ESO and the scientists who were used to the ODP standards, and also because most of the scientists were on the Oden. But ESO learned rapidly and it was all solved. But at the beginning, it was hard (laughs).

I have to say that I was there at the start of the cruise in Tromsö to see the drillship, the Vidar Viking, and was really impressed, it was so different.  In retrospect, I thought, “I should have sailed with them” because I thought I could have been the go-between, you see? The sort of person who could have explained, to make things smoother. And also, I would have liked to go to the North Pole (laughs)! Yeah, the beginning of ESO was a bit shaky, but the learning curve was good.

BMR: Yeah, it’s interesting to see this learning process. It kind of builds on the things that were learned before. So, for example, you were the first ones to kind of face what is an MSP; but now what is an MSP is taken for granted, and they are building on that. Talking about the onshore science party, for IODP³ having one will be the norm for expeditions.

CM: Yeah, this is exactly the continuation of that scheme. However the risk is, if you don’t have enough cruises, the operators lose their skills. If you don’t sail often enough… Because if you only sail once a year, you have to do something else during the rest of the year. So, drilling becomes not your major point of interest and it might generate some problems in the future.

BMR: Yeah, of course. And also, besides having at least one expedition a year, there must be some variety in the sense of, if you do three expeditions in a row that require the same expertise, and have equivalent subjects and goals, you are losing part of those other communities.

CM: Exactly.

BMR: So, the challenges are the same, haven’t changed much since your times (both laugh).

CM: With less money (both laugh).

BMR: Someone told me that it’s not less money – it’s the same money, but everything costs more. Well, I think this is all from my side, but if there’s some other topic you can touch on, we can continue talking.

CM: No… I don’t think so. I don’t see anything else to say. But if you have more questions, you can always email me.

BMR: Well, thank you so much.

CM: Thank you.