Gilbert Camoin

Beatriz Martinez-Rius (BMR): Today is March 18 of 2024. We are at Nachi-Katsura, Wakayama Prefecture, Japan. I am Beatriz Martinez-Rius, postdoctoral researcher at JAMSTEC, and I am with Gilbert Camoin. Thank you very much.

Gilbert Camoin (GC): Thank you.

BMR: First of all, can you tell your name, affiliation and current role?

GC: I am Gilbert Camoin. I’m senior researcher at the CNRS (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique). And for the current program (IODP, International Ocean Discovery Program), I am director of the Managing Agency and member of all Facility Boards for this program.

BMR: Where did you grow up? How was your childhood like?

GC: I was born in Marseille, in southern France. I grew up there and I stayed there until I was 25… No, even earlier than that. I was 23 when I got my PhD, very early, and then I moved first to Tunisia, to work a year there for an oil company, and then I moved to Paris because it was my first job as a scientist. I started at the age of 25 as a scientist at the CNRS.

BMR: And what were your parents doing, what was their job?

GC: My two parents were just employees in the administration, so they had no connection at all with science. And, in fact, I just innovated. (laughs)

Gilbert as a kid. Courtesy of G. Camoin.

BMR: Why did you grow interested in marine sciences?

GC: In fact, the interest came already when I was 11 or 12, when… I was exploring caves, doing speleology. And, I mean, the context, the rocks… I’ve been always interested in rocks. So I said, “okay, so maybe that would be my job one day.” And in fact, yes, I did that. Even that, after the two first years of my university course, I hesitated a bit between geology and biology, but I finally went into geology. Although now my science activities are just in between geology and biology, working on coral reefs, so living entities.

BMR: Where did you say that you graduated? Did you study in Paris?

GC: I  graduated in Marseille, also, and I moved to Paris only for my first job.

BMR: Was there anyone in your undergraduate or graduate course who was influential in your career, who guided you to get started?

GC: Yes. The reason I hesitated between biology and geology is that I had two professors at the university in Marseille, one in biology, the other one in geology, who were already strong characters and very good scientists, and had charism, so that’s why I more or less hesitated between the two specialties.

BMR: So after graduating, you went to Tunisia.

GC: Exactly. Because when I passed my PhD, I couldn’t apply immediately to the CNRS. I had one year contract with Elf Aquitaine in Tunisia, working in the oil fields; and then back from Tunisia, working in the labs of Elf Aquitaine, before I could apply for my position at the CNRS.

BMR: So you didn’t hesitate between academia and industry, as a future career.

GC: Yes, I did. When I passed my PhD – because my PhD was funded by a company, an oil company, TOTAL – one of my supervisors from TOTAL told me, “if you agree, you have a job in my company next week.” And I told him, “give me just one weekend to think about it. And then I phoned him on the Monday morning and I told him “no, I will continue and I want to become a scientist.” And then he told me, “I will never forget that, because I was hesitating in the same way. But the only thing is that I will help you until I get retired.” And this is what he has done, by funding my research, until he retired.

BMR: May I ask you his name?

GC: André Maurin. He was one of the leaders in geology in TOTAL at that time.

BMR: Why did you finally decide on academia? What kinds of things were you hesitant about?

GC: Well, I knew a little bit already the… I mean, the private world for geology and for me, the question, this couldn’t really fulfill what I was looking for. I wanted to go in depth. I wanted to… I cannot stop, when I don’t understand something. In industry, this is what you are doing on a regular basis. So I just wanted to go in depth, first thing; and secondly, to be free and to decide for myself my scientific objectives.

BMR: So you started in academia in a position of researcher at CNRS.

GC: Correct.

BMR: Did you start the time with marine geosciences, going to the ocean?

BMR: No. I was working on land because that was my background, my expertise as a carbonate sedimentologist working on, let’s say, kind of potential oil reservoirs and kind of reefs, if you want, because I was working on Cretaceous so-called reefs, and I was working in the field, mostly. But this knowledge, of course, could be then used for the company to work offshore, to try to get some oil and gas offshore. And by the way, once I made a special study for Texaco in Tunisia and they found a gas field thanks to what I advised. So I was very proud of that, honestly.

BMR: What led you then to the oceans? Because it’s kind of very different from Tunisia.

GC: The first step was in 1992, when there was a call for applications for a JOIDES Resolution expedition dealing with these so-called Cretaceous reefs. That was one of the two legs on atolls and guyots, Leg 144. I applied for this one and I was just in the expertise for that. I applied and I sailed for the first time on the JOIDES Resolution. And curiously, that was also exactly the time when I changed a little bit my scientific interests, moving from these Cretaceous platforms and Cretaceous reefs to Quaternary reefs. And this is what I’m doing since, let’s say, 1993 or something like that, so more than 30 years now, on Quaternary reefs. But at that time, to finish all my job on the material collected during the leg 144, and that was very successful, it was a very interesting Leg.

BMR: Was that your first experience in international collaboration?

GC: No, I had some international collaborations, but not at that scale. The Ocean Drilling Program had a scale that the individual projects, individual international projects could not get.

BMR: What do you remember about that expedition?

GC: I think I remember every day (laughs). We spent sixty-one days at sea between the Marshall Atoll in Micronesia and Yokohama in Japan. So it means that we were assigned already to arrive in Japan in a day of July, when it was the Day of the Ocean, and arrive to Yokohama with the JOIDES Resolution that was… really something. I will never forget this expedition. That was absolutely great. Some of these people involved, I mean, I collaborated with them and I still have collaborations with some of them… Roger Larson, Bradley Opdyke, Terry (Terence M.) Quinn… There are so many people that I sailed with… Paul Wilson…

BMR: At that moment, what was the situation of France regarding ODP?

GC: In fact, during ODP times, France was a member of ODP. So France was paying to get access to this [facilities]. And, for instance, for this expedition we had two scientists onboard. One colleague from Grenoble, who was a micropaleontologist, and myself. That was exactly what we were paying for, at that time.

BMR: Maybe we can come later to why France became member of the ECORD Consortium (European Consortium of Ocean Research Drilling) for the IODP (Integrated Ocean Drilling Program).

GC: Absolutely.

BMR: Let’s follow chronologically. So from that moment you just got hooked for scientific ocean drilling.

GC: That’s correct.

BMR: How did you continue with that?

GC: In fact, I was working on all the material I had collected in this leg and nothing [else] happened more or less before 1998. Maybe a little bit before, because 1998 was the time when I submitted my first IODP proposal. It was an ODP proposal, by the way. And it was on Quaternary reefs off Tahiti and the Great Barrier Reef. The idea behind that was, of course, to make sure that we can drill one day those things, but it was also a concerted action between different groups of scientists to demonstrate that we needed something else than the JOIDES Resolution to drill these archives. And I remember that at that time, Jan Backman was writing this proposal on the Arctic, which became ACEX (Arctic Coring Expedition, Expedition 302), and I was working on my proposal on Tahiti and the Great Barrier reef,  to show that we needed something else to deal with drilling in ice-covered waters and shallow waters.

BMR: You say this was your proposal, or at least a proposal that you were leading.

GC: I was leading that one, yeah. We had two other colleagues from CEREGE (Centre Européen de Recherche et d’Enseignement des Geosciences de l’Environnement), so from my institute, associated; plus Peter Davies from the University of Sydney. And there was also Christian Dullo from GEOMAR in Kiel, Germany.

BMR: How came, that you detected this need for something different than the JR?

GC: With my new specialty, I would say, on Quaternary reefs. I knew that the JOIDES Resolution wouldn’t do the job because of course we are talking about a depth of, let’s say, 30 meters to 100 meters down, which is not into the range that the JOIDES [Resolution]could drill. So we really thought that it was needed. Also, before submitting this proposal, I had already organized a drilling campaign on land in Tahiti, on the Barrier Reef of Tahiti, and the results were so impressive. We published some Nature papers at that time and we said, “okay, now if we want to get the final story of that stuff, we need to go just a hundred meters offshore.” And this hundred meters meant eight million dollars, at that time. Which is a lot, but that was the price to pay to get what we wanted.

BMR: About the situation of offshore drilling platforms in the nineties… Had you already identified the kind of platform that could do the job? Or was it something totally new, that you weren’t sure whether it would be possible?

GC: We knew it already; we had spotted a drilling system at that time. There was the PROD operated already in Australia by Benthic Geotech. And Peter Davies, one of my co-proponents, was the guy behind this. He worked on this project with some people from industry and specialized in drilling, so they worked on this first generation of seabed drill, the PROD. And this is what we proposed for both Tahiti and the Great Barrier reef. So we had something in mind. We knew that that was the only way to try to get these reef cores.

BMR: Were there other groups of people trying to drill down on this kind of shallow water environments?

GC: There were some people working, wanting to drill in shallow water environments, but not necessarily on coral reefs. There were some people who wanted to drill on continental margins, for instance, on mostly siliciclastic sediments – people like Ken Miller and Greg Mountain in the US. But at the time nothing was in existence. So it was really on purpose, that we submitted this proposal, plus also all the proposals like the Arctic one, to show to the scientific Ocean Drilling Program that we needed something else. And my proposal was then forwarded to the Planning Committee, or the Science Committee, of ODP and it was one to be scheduled. But then they said, “oh, but we don’t have the platform to do that. So better to keep this one and the Arctic one for the new program,” because we knew that this could happen. And soon after, in 2001, we organized for the first time the APLACON Conference, the ‘Alternative Platform Conference’, to say that we need other drilling systems, other ships, to achieve some scientific objectives. And that was really the start of the new development, and that has been mostly the start of ECORD, basically.

BMR: Going back to the first proposal, how would you describe the reaction of the scientific community? Because it was community who had grown used, for twenty years, to rely on the JOIDES Resolution and to design the proposals based on its capabilities.

GC: Our proposal was very much supported, in fact, because there was a clear need from the community to get something like this. I could say exactly the same for the Arctic, because for years, people wanted to work in high latitudes, not only in the Arctic but also in the Antarctic. And there was no possibility to do that. So definitely, the community was very supportive. I mean, the community is generally very supportive of any new initiative. So that’s why it was not so complicated.

BMR: What happened then with that proposal? You said it was accepted.

GC: It was it was accepted and ready to be scheduled. But then they put it on hold before the new program started. The new program was the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP), starting in 2003. And in the first meeting of the IODP Science Committee, the first IODP, the Arctic [proposal] was ranked number one, and Tahiti, the Tahiti and Great Barrier Reef [proposal], was ranked number two and then scheduled, for 2004 the Arctic, and 2005 Tahiti.

BMR: If you want we can talk now about the Tahiti Expedition, the 310, and then we go back to things about organization and the creation of ECORD. I’m would like know, first what does it mean or imply to drill on coral reefs. Is this a reef that is alive? Or an ancient (fossil) reef?

GC: The project was for Tahiti and the Great Barrier Reef. In fact, if you go 20,000 years back in time, the sea level was 120 to 130 meters lower than now, because most of the water was just kept in the icecaps. That means that (to reach) the reefs of that age, you have to dive or to drill 120 to 130 meters below the modern sea level. If you want now to reconstruct what happened since the last ice age, that means that you have to try to track all these reefs, or reef systems, growing from 20,000 years ago till now. The only way to do that is to drill at depths from between 120 – 130 meters, to more or less the modern sea level, because they left records everywhere. And that’s the point. So if you want to go back in time, you have to go and drill that depth and then gradually up, to the modern sea level. That’s what we were trying to do. So you easily understand that to reconstruct that, you cannot have only one hole. You really need to drill along a transect, to make sure that you have all the ages and all the reefs that remain in different stages and different depths. So the idea is also to understand the, let’s say, how the last deglaciation processes occurred. The only way to trace that is with the reef systems, because they are so accurate. A core which is 20,000 years old can give an age with an accuracy of +/- 15 years. This is something which is incredible for geologists. It’s the way this is.

BMR: You said you were drilling in Tahiti and in the Great Barrier Reef. Did you have any problem regarding the environmental impact, or faced some kind of reticence?

GC: This is something that we learned at that time. I had some experience with land drilling on reefs and based on that, we worked with the different panels in IODP and the operator, the ECORD science operator, to demonstrate to the local authorities that our drilling will not impact the environment. So the first thing that we have done was, with the EPSP, the Environmental Protection and Safety Panel, to define how to drill properly a reef. And that was made through interactions between this panel and me, because they had all the experience, and I just interacted to make these guidelines to drill properly a reef. Concerning the operator, it has been excellent in this preparation because what we were doing, for instance, in Tahiti was – after getting all the Site Survey data before drilling, we put an underwater camera to check if there were no living corals where we wanted to drill. And once we checked that, then we started to drill. And after the drilling, we were just filming again around the drill hole to show that there was no impact like, for instance, accumulation of cuttings and stuff like that. So it has been very successful, in Tahiti. And some years later, when we drilled in the Great Barrier Reef, we could show these videos to the Great Barrier Reeg Marine Park authorities in Australia and they were totally convinced. And [we] insisted, that this is one of the most difficult environments to work. But they said, “no, no, what you showed with your videos is absolutely convincing and there’s no problem.” And we got there to drill. And now, these same guidelines have been applied to all reef drilling that we have done so far.

Photos of IODP Expedition 310, which employed a Mission Specific Platform to drill on coral reefs. Upper left, the scientific party of Expedition 310; lower left, Gilbert and some members of the team pointing to a recovered core sample. On the right, the co-chief scientists of the expedition, Yasufumi Iryu and Gilbert Camoin. Courtesy of G. Camoin.

BMR: This guidelines then, was IODP who developed them?

GC: Yes. That was the EPSP, through interactions with myself.

BMR: So EPSP is this group of people from the industry.

GC: Yes, absolutely. They are mostly people from industry, but they have an experience with drilling, with the seismics, with all the environmental issues… So they are very reliable people. And for them, it was very easy to already figure out what could be the environmental impact of doing this.

BMR: Yeah, that’s interesting.

GC: It was a good experience.

BMR: You were co-chief on this IODP cruise, Expedition 310. What did you learn from that experience?

GC: Honestly, I think I’ve learned a lot of science but also more on human skills and cultural experience. The fact is that the Co-Chief I had with me – I had to choose between different names, and I choosed Yasufumi Iryu because I knew him through different conferences and exchanges that I had with him. And I thought that he was the right person, just really fitting well with my expectations. And the experience has shown that it was exactly the case. I mean… To summarize, what he said when we were about to be back in the port of Tahiti, after 42 days drilling offshore Tahiti, he told me: “I thought that I was just implementing an expedition with a friend, but in fact I did it with a brother.” And this is something which is unforgettable, for me. We are still working together; we are still collaborating together. And the same thing for the science team. I’m still working with many of them.

BMR: This was your first experience in a management position at an IODP expedition, but I would like to ask you about your beginnings in management positions for the organization of scientific ocean drilling.

GC: My first experience was in the 2000, when I was nominated as a member of the Science Evaluation Panel.  I started in April 2000; it was in Cambridge. And then, after a year, Ted Moore asked me to become Co-Chair of the Science Evaluation Panel. That’s what I had done when I started in November 2001 in the first meeting of the Science Evaluation Panel in Yokosuka, Japan. And this was when I met all sorts of people who became, I mean, major people in my life. Nobu Eguchi, for instance. I couldn’t imagine at the time that 23 years later we could initiate a new scientific ocean drilling program (laughs). That’s great. That’s the way it is. So then, at the time of the expedition in Tahiti, I was SEP (Science Evaluation Panel) Co-Chair for IODP, and I was also ESSAC (ECORD Science Support & Advisory Committee) delegate for France. So that means, a member of the ECORD Science Committee. And this, I started in 2003, when ECORD was created. And for this I was mandated by John Ludden to take this position as ESSAC Delegate.

BMR: What were the challenges for ECORD when it was born?

GC: The first challenge for ECORD was to attract members. At the beginning there were up to nine or ten  members, right? So it was to attract members and to have a decent budget to play a significant role in IODP. The fact is that with the new concept of the Mission-Specific Platforms, ECORD needed to find its way, but also to demonstrate that we had the capacity to implement expeditions, which were not only the things that the others couldn’t do, but something which was really innovative in terms of technology, in terms of scientific objectives…

BMR: What were you doing exactly, in your position as delegate? What does it mean to be a delegate of an IODP science committee?

GC: The role of a delegate in a Science Committee like ESSAC, is to select the scientists that we want to send on the expeditions, not only to our expeditions, but also to the expeditions implemented by the JOIDES Resolution and Chikyu. Also to select the early career scientist attending the summer schools, and all the other activities that we created every year on the way. So this was that responsibility. And also, to give some advice to our funding agencies sitting at the ECORD Council.

BMR: Were you a delegate, then, with other delegates of ECORD member countries?

GC: Each member country has one delegate at the science committee, ESSAC, and one delegate or one representative at the ECORD council. And at ECORD, nothing is driven by votes or something like that. We are talking always about consensus. So we had to agree on most of the stuff.

BMR: So ECORD was born for the first IODP and it was one of its legs – it was Japan, the US, and ECORD.

GC: It was called like that, the third leg of the scientific ocean drilling, that’s correct.

BMR: How ECORD found its way forward? It was something very new, it didn’t exist for this kind of scientific cooperation.

GC: This is true, we had to find our way. It took a little bit of time, although we, I mean, life has been easier after drilling the Arctic and Tahiti, because they were two very successful expeditions. And then we could already show, demonstrate, that we could really bring something to this program in terms of innovation. And also, when you explore new drilling environments, you always bring in new scientific communities. And this is what really has been the specificity of ECORD over the years.

BMR: And also, it seems like ECORD made of the MSP (Mission-Specific Platforms) sort of its brand, right?

GC: Correct.

BMR: How the idea came up? Was it a logical conclusion that a group of countries should have a group of platforms?

GC: It has been really science-driven. It was really based on the will of the scientific community. As I explained, we had this people wanting to work on shallow water systems, other would like to work on high latitudes, and those were not possible with the other platforms. So it was quite early, I would say, to say “that can be our environment, our realm.” But at that time it was really science-driven, and we wanted really to bring some new technology. But through time, we know now that we have imposed, in fact, a new concept. How to deal with these expeditions, the offshore expeditions. I think that’s something that ECORD can be proud of.

BMR: Were you involved in the process of convincing governments and ministries around Europe to get into ECORD?

GC: Absolutely. But at the time, I was not… I was just an actor. I was not really the filmmaker. The people in charge at that time had really to convince the funding agencies because for them, that was something which was existing for decades – there was one infrastructure that we funded, or co-funded, and that was more or less the format of the expeditions, right? But there was a kind of revolution, in fact, in the early 2000 because both, the MSP concept arrived, but also Chikyu arrived in the new program. And that was, for me, a very important date in the history, just to bring these new infrastructures in the program. Again, when you’re drilling a new environment, and that was also true for Chikyu, then you can bring new scientific communities in scientific ocean drilling.

BMR: What was the reception of the other partners, Japan and the US, to these new concepts? Having Europe as a group and these innovations in platforms.

GC: There was a kind of enthusiasm but at the same time, especially our American partners, were just wondering what could happen with that. But honestly, I think that all the other platform providers were supportive of that, because the fact that we developed the MSP concept didn’t change anything for our participation on all the expeditions implemented by the JOIDES Resolution and Chikyu. So that means that the international collaboration, both in terms of science and technology, was existing already – and still existing, so that was not a big issue. But definitely, I think that they have been supportive and through time, we have even demonstrated that the community who was more interested in using Mission-Specific Platforms was, in fact, the US science community; even more than the ECORD community. So that means that this is very international, that means that it is just science-driven.

BMR: Let’s continue talking about the first IODP. What roles did you play in those first ten years?

GC: I was a SEP co-chair for four years from 2001 to 2005, I was ESSAC delegate at that time, and I became ESSAC Chair in 2007, for two years. And then, I was also a member of the IODP science committee, the Science Planning Committee, SPC.

BMR: What kind of things did you do in the Science Planning Committee?

GC: The Committee was for scheduling the expeditions and just overseeing the functioning of the program.

BMR: You were representative of ECORD, there.

GC: I was an ECORD representative, absolutely.

BMR: What kind of things did you have to take into account to represent such a consortium? Because you were not representing France, you were representing a consortium.

GC: Since that time, I don’t think that I represented France, I’ve always represented ECORD. That was my task and is still my task. I mean, my national interest is just secondary in that.

BMR: Exactly, that’s why I was asking, what kind of things you have to take into account when you represent ECORD?

GC: The most critical issue is certainly to make sure that we try to be as close as possible to our quotas. The number of scientists you can get into the ships in relation to your financial contribution. But even when I was ESSAC co-chair, I always put forward the scientific expertise, and put this before any consideration concerning the nationality. That’s my view. And several times I’ve preferred to take a German or a UK scientists or another nationality than the French one just because the other one was better. And this, this is just the ECORD interest.

BMR: Have you found the ECORD community united in those first ten years of existence?

GC: Surprisingly, it worked from the beginning, because I think that there was really something that appealed immediately to the to the European community, that together we were stronger. And we realized that together we were really good, in terms of science. And this has been demonstrated over the years. I mean, ECORD is the first supplier of the scientific drilling proposals in the system. And I think that was really something that the people realized very quickly.

BMR: How was the transition from IODP 1 to IODP 2 (International Ocean Discovery Program) for ECORD? Its role, the new challenges, opportunities…

GC: For this I became the filmmaker, in fact, because I took over the role of ECORD Managing Agency Director in 2012, so one year before the end of IODP 1, to prepare the IODP 2, the International Ocean Discovery Program. For this I had many roles, in fact, because first, I was in the Science Plan Writing Committee. So just acting on the science. Secondly, I was defining the architecture of the new program, mostly with Tom Janecek, from NSF. And third, concerning ECORD, and to face all the new challenges and where I wanted to bring ECORD, I changed totally the structure of ECORD. And then, that was almost ready in 2013 when we started with a new program. And since then, since 2012, I’m the Director of the ECORD Managing Agency.

The first thing I wanted to change, besides the structure, is that ECORD can get a long-term vision on what we wanted to achieve. One thing. The second thing was to expand the concept of the Mission-Specific Platform. That means, not restricting our expeditions to the shallow water environments or the high latitudes, but also to have a great diversification of the drilling and coring systems to get these systems absolutely adapted to our scientific needs. And also to change a little bit the concept of the expeditions in terms of duration, in terms of participation; to optimize, in fact, our resources. That was really, for me, the driving plan.

BMR: What made you realize that these kind of things needed to change?

GC: Because I realized very quickly that our budget will not increase anyway. None of the budgets have increased. And secondly, that the operational costs were just going up. So the only way to do that is to be as smart as possible, and to use the resources as much as possible. That has been my driving force for 20 years, now. And I’m just happy now to see that these ideas, these initial ideas and concepts, became reality over the years, and now will become even true in the new program.

BMR: You mentioned that you changed the structure of ECORD. What kind of things did you change?

GC: In fact I just added some panels or Task Forces which didn’t exist before. I mean, the scientific committee was existing – the operator, the ECORD Council, the ECORD Managing Agency… But what I wanted is really to create things like the two taskforces. One is the Vision (Task Force), to have a long-term view, to help each other, to really to try to attract new members. And the Communication Task Force, to standardize more or less our communication regarding the program. So all these things, I really wanted really to include them. I developed the Magellan Plus Workshop Program because, for me, this is the most efficient way to involve the whole scientific community to produce high-class drilling proposals in the system. So all these innovations have proved to be very efficient in ECORD, for ECORD… Even if I said before that there was enthusiasm in the scientific community and in ECORD – I’m sure of that – I’m proud of one thing, in twelve years. That is that now, I can say that there is an ECORD spirit. And in the Committees, we don’t feel that we are German, English or Swiss, but ECORD. And that’s why I mean. I also changed the way we organized our meetings. Initially, all the meetings of all committees were organized separately. Now, I’ve grouped everything so that everyone gets the same level of information. And this is where we have the interactions. Regardless of the financial contribution. The Finnish representative or representatives, even if they pay $80,000 a year, they talk with the same voice that the Germans, who provide something like $5.6 million dollars every year. And this is the beauty of everything. And you don’t have to convince anyone, you don’t have to vote to come to a consensus. That’s the beauty of the… The real democracy, in which all the concepts work like this.

BMR: So we have a very united ECORD who communicates with NSF or with MEXT, the other counterparts. You mentioned before that in designing the IODP 2, the Discovery Program, you were communicating with NSF, right?

GC: Mostly with Tom Janecek, that’s right.

BMR: What kind of negotiations happened there? What was the position of one and the other?

GC: I wouldn’t say negotiations. I would say interactions, because I think that we had both… We were not the only ones, of course, but we both had some experience with the program. And it’s sometimes easy to identify what is working well, what is working less well… For instance, in IODP 1 there was a strong management, that was heavy and was not really cost-efficient. So what we wanted to have, in the second program, was something slimmer in terms of organization, more cost-efficient. And the other things that we created, like the Facility Boards, this, for me, is a big success. Because this is exactly what you need, more or less what I did with ECORD. You need to get everybody around the table. The scientists, the operators, the founders… You need it. And that’s exactly the Facility Board. But then, if you want to extend the program, you need something like a Forum. A Forum is [a space] to talk to the outer world. For too long, these programs have been just working only in their own sphere. The Forum was the occasion to export a little bit and try to interact with the outer world. And I think that was a big success.

BMR: What do you mean, when you say outer world? Other scientific communities?

GC: Other scientific communities, other programs, other initiatives, working more or less in the same direction. And something which was good also in IODP 2, and especially in the Science Plan, was that people realized that societal relevance was the number one of the qualities that the Science Plan could get.

BMR: We can come back later to this, because I would like to ask a bit more about program transitions. We are now at the end of IODP 2, and the program will be completely transformed for the next phase. In hindsight, is there something that you would have done different in the design of IODP 2?

GC: Not really. I think that the program worked, honestly. Maybe… Few things, yes. For instance, the Evaluation Panel was considered as an evaluation panel of the JOIDES Resolution that  the other platform providers could then use. I think that was a mistake. We should have done something which is purely international. I mean, looking at the program and not specifically attached to the platform provider. That’s one example of things which could have been better. That’s the main thing. I think that it would have been better to put it more international. That would have been good. But in terms of benefits to the science community, I think that this program has done well. Definitely.

BMR: So then let’s talk about how the idea of IODP³ (International Ocean Drilling Programme, cubed) came up.

GC: In fact, honestly, I’m not different from many others. We felt that after IODP2 it should have been another international program. Even if we had to change some aspects of the funding, the operations… We knew that we wanted this. But we realized, we all realized in 2019, that it wouldn’t be possible. For the first time, I mean – I remember that I was presenting a report on the PROCEED Meeting (Expanding Frontiers of Scientific Ocean Drilling) at a meeting of the JOIDES Resolution Facility Board. So that means, that workshop was supposed to define the ECORD priorities in the future program. I was presenting a report on how to proceed at the JR Facility Board. That was in Denver. I presented that, and my conclusion was, we want to continue in a single international program. Soon after me there was Anthony Koppers presenting something about the US side, and he was concluding exactly the same thing. And I remember that there was a comment by Jamie Allan saying, “they will be, maybe, different programs.” And Anthony Koppers said, “no, one program.” And he (Jamie) said, “no, different programs.” And this is when we realized that it would be more complicated, maybe, to conceive a single international program. So then, a month after, we realized that it was effectively the case. Then the pandemic froze everything, and then in 2021, during a Zoom chat with Nobu Eguchi (JAMSTEC, Japan), first he was a little bit provocative because he told me, “maybe, Gilbert, we should become an ECORD member.” And I told him, “no, Japan cannot be an ECORD  member.” But, in fact, we took this interaction to say, why not trying to build something together? Because in fact, we were talking about two of the current platform providers building, organizing, a new program, and that could make sense. It took a time – together, most of the time on the same page, that was no difficult. But we had to, first, define the concepts of the new program. Some of the concepts were very close to what we developed at ECORD, so that was not too complicated. But we wanted to go further, we went further, and it took some meetings to convince our other colleagues, or at least that they could realize what we intended to do. And then we decided we needed to do it and to start writing this program. And this is what we have done over the last, let’s say, eighteen months or so.

BMR: What was the reaction of the US colleagues? Both the scientists on the committees and the funding agency.

GC: I think that they were probably waiting to see, but… The problem, I think, is that the science community didn’t know what the funding agency, the NSF, wanted to do. So they were just expecting something. Maybe they have being impressed by the way we wrote this program. We conceived this program. We were agreeing on everything, and finally they fully realized that this program was pretty attractive because it is very flexible. It can host anyone. So it’s possible. And concerning NSF itself, I think they don’t have a final plan, definitely, for post-2024, and they have been hesitating already to join or not our program. The most important for us was to create something which is really tailored to the scientific needs, for the international community. It was not built for ECORD and Japan, but for the international community. But also to say, okay, we can host anyone. And this is what we have done. I am also proud for this, for what we’ve done. And this means that nothing is written in stone, now. This program will exist, but it will be possible to join it.

BMR: Would you say that there are some limitations now, in IODP³, that were not in the previous programs?

GC: The only limitation we could get is just related to the operational costs. Because they are now much higher, definitely. So we have to be even more innovative in terms of how we implement our expeditions. That’s why we have introduced more flexibility in the implementation of the expeditions to, as always, optimize the resources. That’s the only limitation I see. But then we have to be convincing, to assemble a reasonable budget. I think that the services that we already put in place for IODP³ should provide even more opportunities for the IODP³ members than during the International Ocean Discovery Program.

BMR: Now that we are talking about economic resources. You frequently communicate with funding agencies around Europe, and of course there’s a certain level of diplomacy, when you relate to funding agencies. I would like to ask you about how do you convince funding agencies. For example, you go there to ask them for money and they know that, but maybe they already have a fixed budget that cannot change. How do you navigate these situations?

GC: I always put forward the scientific interest. This is what I have just done, ten days ago, in the Netherlands. And they were pretty receptive. So that’s one thing. I mean, the scientific interests in terms of what our funding agencies or the general public can get from this investment. The societal relevance is always my major, major, major goal. Besides that, you can argue that they will have more outcomes from the new program than from the current program. And this is exactly what I told to the NOW (Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk, Dutch Research Council), so the Dutch funding agency. They were pretty receptive to that. So these are, again, the two arguments but again, mostly science-driven.

BMR: What kind of outcomes, do you mention?

GC: That means more scientists involved in the program. And this is quite important. For the same amount of money, they will get more. That’s a good argument. But again, for me, science-driven – this is the most important. Science as advice. If you think that with societal relevance you don’t produce any money, that is wrong. You can save much more money than many other sectors, producing money. Because the effects of climate change on human lives and on human infrastructures… We are talking about billions and billions of euros. So, trying to mitigate those risks, in terms of climate changes or hazards is a major goal.

BMR: So following along this line, what can scientific ocean drilling provide that other programs or other kinds of science doesn’t provide?

GC: It’s not exclusive. We cannot say, I’m working on the ocean drilling archives but not on the rest, and vice-versa. The two are complementary. We need to work on land – I’m working on land, on the fossil coral reefs on land, but I’m also working on these coral reefs offshore. They are complementary. This is true for different aspects of scientific ocean drilling. But if you are talking about hazards, the experience that Chikyu did soon after the Tohoku Earthquake was something that cannot compete with anything else. This is where you can really learn, if some day we will be able to predict something in terms of earthquakes. This is not something that you can do easily on land. You need the two, and scientific ocean drilling is an asset for that.

Gilbert sampling coral reefs onshore in French Polynesia. Left, taking surface samples with a hammer and right, sampling cores with a portable drilling system. Courtesy of G. Camoin.

BMR: In relation to this, yesterday we were talking about the industry. Industrial applications can be seen for some countries as an outcome, but for others might be seen as something to avoid making the connection with scientific ocean drilling. So what kind of connections have you found between industry and scientific ocean drilling?

GC: This has been quite difficult, I would say. In IODP 1, we had in place a panel on liaisons with industry. When I started with ECORD, I did the same at an ECORD level. There was an ECORD Industry Liaison Panel. It was an ad hoc panel. We had the major companies there. But then, we had to schedule the expeditions in the Arctic, in very sensitive environments. And that was the moment when we said, “okay, we cannot do both of them.”

When we talk about the industry, we always talk about the oil industry. But this is not the only one. There are other sectors of the industry with whom we could work. I’m talking about water resources, for instance. We are now just one year before implementing the New England Hydrogeology [Expedition], which would be a major expedition in terms of new frontiers. This is where we can go. I mean, to work with the industry for water resources. Because this, for me, is a top priority for the future. This will be the major challenge in the future, with climate change – water resources. So this is where we can meet industry. Not one in that the industry dictates what we can drill or [how to] develop our projects. But at least, having interactions that can be scientific and technologic. And this is the way I think that we should go. And that’s why the new Forum, the IODP³ Forum, called Scientific Drilling Forum, will take into account these new ways of discussing with or interacting with industry. Not really to get immediate money, this is not exactly what we want, but at least to exchange experience, both in terms of science and technology.

BMR: How has been the evolution you have witnessed, in the relationship between scientific offshore drilling and offshore industries?

GC: There has always been interests from the industry, and especially the oil industry, in scientific ocean drilling. I’ve worked with contracts with oil companies for more than thirty, forty years or almost, and they told me, “the first thing we do when we want to investigate a basin is to go to the IODP data,” because that gives you the frame, let’s say. You have the stratigraphy, you have tectonics… To understand a bit more before going in more details concerning the potential resources. So we know that, and this is normal because we put everything in public after a while. It is our duty, to do so. But there was never a thing: the industry has never dictated any scientific objective to the scientific ocean drilling program. And I think we were right to do so.

BMR: After talking about the industry, I’d like to talk about diplomacy, international relations through sciences. One very interesting thing about scientific ocean programs is the international relations that are built among scientists. Of course you have a long experience on this. So, where are the limits on the international relations that scientists can build, in this community?

GC: Among scientists there’s never a problem for that, because we are talking the same language, we are talking science. But when it comes to some geographical areas or some exchanges, let’s say, then problems can arise. And this has been the case recently, of course. This was the case just two years ago, when we wanted to implement ArcOP (Arctic Ocean Paleoceanography, Expedition 377), an expedition in the Arctic, and due to the geopolitical situation, the war in Ukraine, and the fact that Russian vessels were posted close to our drilling sites, we had to cancel this expedition. Currently, at the moment, of course with Russia, with other countries… I mean, the situation is pretty tense. It can be more problematic to consider a direct scientific collaboration, even if, again, among scientists there’s no problem. But when you are talking about the Economic [Exclusive] Zones in the in the oceans, it’s always a problem. And some proposals, I’m sure, are guided towards some geopolitical interests. So we have really to avoid this. It’s not easy to do so, but at least, concerning the international collaboration, I had recently to face some, let’s say, limitations concerning certain countries in the program or associated to our program.

BMR: Do you have any example of a case in which, in scientific ocean drilling, the relations established or the programs implemented have contributed somehow to approach at political level? I mean, if this has led to some kind of rapprochement, or whether there is a kind of limit, that no matter what you do in science…?

GC: Could you please rephrase it?

BMR: So, by working together in scientific ocean drilling with scientists from other countries with which diplomatic relations are rather tense or closed, is it possible to contribute to warm up these relations?

GC: Honestly, I don’t think that the scientific world will influence the diplomatic relationships. We are probably working in different worlds. I don’t think that we influence that, unfortunately. It is like the sports. We are in the same situation. Sports doesn’t really approach diplomatic relationships, especially… I mean, over the last few years, the geopolitical tensions are huge. Are strong. So I doubt that scientists can properly influence this. But at least, the diplomacy or the geopolitical problems don’t influence our relationships with our colleagues from other countries, that’s for sure. So you see that there’s a kind of barrier between these two different worlds.

BMR: Now, while preparing the IODP³, how do you see the future of scientific ocean drilling, the decade that comes now? What do you expect?

GC: Well… I haven’t thought about the ten years (laughs). I’m not saying that I think of it every day, but at least, just to make sure to get this program off the ground. That was my pleasure, I would say, to see for instance that the ECORD countries didn’t argue at all. They said, we go for that. So, there was, again, a consensus, very easy to get at the ECORD level. The fact that we decided to build this program with our Japanese friends is also helping a lot because there is trust between our two people. And I think that helped a lot. And now, the ECORD funding agencies, the  ECORD community, is trusting a lot what we are doing. And also the fact that with our Japanese friends we made everything transparent. We informed the people on the different steps. I think that helps a lot, too. So I would say I’m optimistic for the future. The very recent meeting that we had in Kobe (the Interim Mission Specific Facility Board, or Joint CIB-EFB meeting) gave me even more optimism for the future. I’m sure we will make it.

BMR: I hope so. Is there anything that we have not talked about that you want to mention?

GC: Yes. Where the US will be. So the good point, for me, is that we didn’t stop the interaction with the National Science Foundation, on one side, and also with the US [scientific] community on the other side. The fact that we built a program which is flexible enough to host anyone means that in a little corner of my mind, I still have the hope to bring the US into our program. There is some  signs, from time to time, but they are still hesitating to do so. But if I had to spend the time to convince them again, and again, and again, I would do that. Because that’s the interest of the community,  and I’m sure that they will come. The fact that we already decided in the first year of IODP³ to implement an expedition co-funded by NSF is a good sign. That was the best news I had over the last few weeks. And I’m stubborn, and I want to bring them with us, back to us. That’s in their interests and that’s in our interests.

BMR: What is the position of the US regarding leadership? The US is giving now the leadership of these programs to Japan and ECORD. Would the US be willing to contribute as a leader, or in a different position?

GC: The notion of leadership is a notion that we, Europeans and Japanese, don’t have, I think. What we wanted to do is just to make it happen. So without talking about leadership, or who is leading, or something like that. But in the case that the US come to us, to IODP³, they would be leading in terms of funding. For me that’s not the most important thing. What is important is that, again, we are working together. And what is important is that, for them, they will get what they paid for. That’s simple. In our case, what we want is to see again the big family together. That’s what we want.

BMR: Thank you very much.