Luigi Jovane

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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 Luigi Jovane by Beatriz Martinez-Rius on 2025 April 11, virtual [link]

Beatriz Martinez-Rius (BMR): Today is April 11 of 2025. I am Beatriz Martinez-Rius, historian of science at JAMSTEC, and I am with Luigi Jovane. Thank you very much for meeting me online. So, first thing, can you please say your name, your affiliation and your position?

Luigi Jovane (LJ): My name is Luigi Jovane. I’m from the Institute of Oceanography of the University of Sao Paolo. I am a paleomagnetist and a geophysicist, and I spent a lot of time of my life organizing a beautiful expedition in the equatorial margin, and I’ve also supported many other expeditions in Brazil. And I hope that, soon, we are going to be able to have it done, in terms of scientific acquisition of a very important dataset.

BMR: Thank you. What has been your relation to scientific ocean drilling?

LJ: I’ve always dreamed to participate in IODP since I was a student. At the beginning I was in Italy, and Italy was it was not very supporting IODP. There was very small participation. So, it was almost impossible to participate in the cruise as Italian. Then, I finished my PhD and I moved for a postdoc in the US. There, I had the opportunity to start participating, to apply for an IODP expedition. I got approved, finally, for an expedition in the Great Barrier Reef. That was actually an ECORD expedition – it was actually a Mission Specific Platform expedition. It was very interesting, and it was very important for my development. I really enjoy it.

I moved to Brazil and in 2012, Brazil entered IODP. I was the first Brazilian sailing with IODP. As a Brazilian I went to Costa Rica, participating in another cruise in front of Costa Rica, driving through the oceanic crust in the subduction zone. It was very interesting. A lot of fun. It was a very nice experience, again.

Then, since I was the only person that was aware of how IODP worked, how science happened, and how IODP was important for scientists, I entered the Scientific Committee of IODP Brazil. It was supported by CAPES – CAPES, at the beginning, gave the lot of money for IODP. [At that time,] there was a crisis in IODP, because the US had restriction the funding… So, Brazil was able to enter with several millions of dollars, which really helped. It was one of the worst crises of IODP – until this last one.

Another point – CAPES was very important; there were a lot of Brazilians participating. But we had a lot of difficulties internally, in CAPES, because although they were supporting economically, there was no staff in CAPES to organize the grants, to organize the travels, to organize the post-cruise support in science… So, it took several years for CAPES to understand that, and to organize it. At the end, they built a science support funding for the scientists that were participating to the cruises. It re-organized, and the work of two or three people of CAPES was focused on organizing the selection of scientists, supporting the students, support for grants, for funding, science… It was a very good structure.

In that time, it was also building new projects, and several proposals [for IODP] had been produced. But then, around 2018, just before the pandemic, CAPES passed through a transition that was mainly political, because there was a political change in Brazil. And so, the change, and also the view, changed, and they were not supporting IODP anymore. So, for example, if Brazilians were really working well in IODP in terms of science participation and things like that, we had several restrictions by CAPES. We had people that were willing to participate in the IODP Facility Board or the SEP (Science Evaluation Panel), but the CAPES was not supporting anymore.

Then, we arrived to the point that actually Brazil, because of the funding that had already put in the table, was able to participate in IODP without paying to IODP. There was an agreement for some of years in which Brazil was participating in the expeditions without being a member, because of this transition. CAPES didn’t want – I mean, it was unbelievable. It was an MoU, free bench for Brazil. They didn’t sign. It was political.

At the same time, we had another important issue that was related to the approval by the Navy for drilling, to allow the JR [JOIDES Resolution] in Brazilian waters and drill in Brazil.  Because, like every country, the Law of the Sea is an international law but you always need some exceptions, and you need somebody to sign these exceptions. We were promised that we would have this exception signed before but then, with this political change, they refused. And so… We were not able to receive the JR and to have this exception. And this didn’t allow us to have the expedition approved.

So, there was some bad things happening, but nothing was really a single one, specific issue. It was bad fortune (laughs). First CAPES, then the Navy. Actually, the Navy wanted to have it done, but it was a very political thing. At the time, the Navy had some issue internally with other armies, and they didn’t have the power to ask to somebody above to sign this approval. We worked a lot to have it done, but we were not able to have it ready by the time the expedition was scheduled.

Then we had the pandemic, which also stopped everything. Let’s say that it worsened the relation between CAPES, the Navy, and the JOIDES Resolution’s activities. Third point –everything stopped. And then, the fourth point (laughs) is that the JR was not able to sail anymore. The retirement of the JR has been a very bad news. And, in the meantime, we saw the problem with CAPES, because we were approved the Institute for Drilling in the South Atlantic, we had funding… We still have it; this institute is still active. I am one of the coordinators of the Institute. And now, we are trying to manage in the middle of this sort of confusion between what will be the post-IODP.

The issue we had with the Navy is 100% resolved, because we were able to build a new decree and now there are new rules for ships coming to Brazil to drill. So, now it’s allowed by law; it’s possible. Before, it was not allowed and to have an exception, you needed a decree signed by a Minister. Now, it is possible with no senior official doing nothing. You need some papers, but we already had these papers – the environmental, the mining, the approval… These things are easy. So, we were able to solve the most of the issues, but every time there were new! So, it was a huge challenge, and we still have not solved it completely.

Last year, we had the opportunity to have the JOIDES Resolution coming here. We had solved the issue with politics; we had solved the issue with the Navy… And now, it was just the issue with the funding, that before was not an issue! We were very unlucky because there was a strange situation that just occurred last year. Now is almost resolved, that it’s that, Petrobras true royalties, we were able to use this money – it’s public money; it’s not from company. But there was a big issue related to environmental safety, because they found a lot of oil in Amazon. So, due to environmental concerns, many people from different places moved a lot and said, “No drilling anywhere!” (laughs), which included also us! And so, we had the money to drill, but they didn’t want to have it done because otherwise everybody was thinking that we were drilling for oil in Amazon… And so, it was everybody against drilling.

Now, they changed a bit but still, it’s almost blocked. So now, this other internal issue… We are going to make a movie once about this story (laughs), “Brazil in IODP, a ten-year story”.

BMR: Right! It’s very interesting because I’ve been talking to people in almost all the IODP member countries, and maybe Brazil has all the components of what can go wrong, right? Without having a platform. I have a lot of questions I’d like to ask, breaking down this story a bit. Talking about CAPES – I’ve heard from other people that they were very surprised when Brazil joined because CAPES is an institution that introduced students and early career scientists, and promoted scientists to move into international collaboration. It just shocked me somehow that at some point they were not supportive anymore of investing in this project, because actually, the longest running Earth science project in history, doing unique science.

LJ: Yes. Exactly, you are correct. CAPES is a higher education institution. So, they fund grants, PhD grants, postdoc grants, Master grants… They don’t fund a lot undergrad, but CAPES is a university funding agency, a national funding agency. It happens that, during that government, they were very rich. They had a lot of funding. That’s why they saw IODP as an important strategic place to spend money in. Which was clever, was good! It was good for the nation; it was good for the students… A lot of students applied and many programs… Because here, it works like that. The PhD students are related to a program, and programs depend from CAPES. So, science is made by the programs. CAPES is very involved in science. But there is another agency that works with science, which is CNPq.

One of the main fault CAPES was to deal with IODP alone. They never opened a table with the Navy, with the CNPq, with other national or state foundations… to have IODP nationally approved. When CAPES had the money and everything was going well, was fine. But everything was inside CAPES. That was that was the problem. Then was no foundation, or consortium, or university… CAPES was above university, in the Senate. So, it’s completely different from other countries. And we tried to change it, a lot, but CAPES wanted to have their own project, which was IODP – they wanted to own it.

So, the political problem was not that much related to money, but mainly related to the fact that CAPES was monopolizing the IODP inside Brazil, instead of opening. And so, they start to have the Geological Survey, Petrobras, other companies, the foundation, the CNPq, which is also the national institute of science – which was actually the best place to have IODP.

Now we are supporting our institute to drill in South America, in the South Atlantic, and it’s inside the Ministry of Science and Technology. So, we are now in the right place. IODP in CAPES was not the right place. And the fact that CAPES wanted to own IODP was not correct. And so that’s why we had this collapse in 2018-19, almost. Because of this… Let’s say wrong political position of IODP in the Brazilian politics.

BMR: How did you got involved in IODP Brazil?

LJ: Most of Brazilians didn’t know what [IODP] was. Very few scientists were working with IODP; very few scientists. Almost no one was involved with IODP. I’ve been invited since the beginning, to the first meetings, and I was used to explain to the directors who were willing to take IODP inside CAPES, as a promoter. I was going there to say, “IODP is good, is very nice for students…”. So, when they had to make the scientific committee, I was firstly elected. We still have this committee, because now this committee is inside the South Atlantic Drilling Institute; but I am the only one that is there since the beginning, because the other ones entered later. At the beginning it was very small group, it was more political and less scientific. Now, even during this period, from 2012 to 2018, we really built a new community in Brazil. Because Brazil was mainly continental; many, many people were working on continents, on general geology, volcanic sediments, and continents. And we were just mainly studying sediments in the coast, in shallow places, shallow conditions. Nobody was working on deep sea sediments or on sediments of other places. So, the IODP was a challenge from the beginning — but we solved it. Then the people, the students, started to learn about IODP and at the end, we had great success. There have been hundreds, hundreds, of scientists involved and being behind them, hundreds of students involved. So, we had a big success. We did reports in 2018 to show how the community of geologists working with the deep sea boomed, and how the programs of the university improved, and how many students were involved in this. It was unbelievable. It was beautiful numbers.

But CAPES was not able to support it in any way because of these political issues. And then, the president of Brazil changed, and we were more conservative…

One thing that is unbelievable and that’s very important to say is, that if you watch the map of IODP drillings in the world, you see a gigantic gap in the South Atlantic, all around Brazil. Brazil received the Glomar Challenger in the 60s, I think, with some cruises. It is very old material. And they drilled it. But, you know, this means that there was no logging, no multi-sensor logger… It was very crude. There are the sediments, the cores, but they are also very old. It was another thing. If you see the reports of the 1970s and the reports now, they are completely different things. There’s many more information now. I think that there have been a very few cruises that occurred in the last thirsty years, one or two, maximum.

BMR: The one in Costa Rica? Costa Rica seismogenic zone, maybe?

LJ: No, the ones in Brazil were one in Amazon, in the nineties, and there was also Ceara Rice. But those ones, for example, were all in international waters. They are very important, but they were very, very limited. So, let’s say that in the last thirty years, there were no drillings all around us. And that was a big problem. This was a big problem also for science. I mean, the Atlantic is the center of the circulation, because it’s the only place where you have the conveyor belt and the AMOC circulation. It is the heart of the AMOC circulation. But if you look at the AMOC models, they never consider the Brazilian side, because there are no drillings!

So, it’s a lack; the lack of knowledge is gigantic. We cannot close the story of AMOC because we don’t have drillings in Brazil. And AMOC is the center of the climate engine. And more than this, South America is the only continent that remained in the same place for the last 100 million years. It didn’t move. So, it’s the only place that you can really make climate reconstructions, because it hasn’t moved. It’s in the same place, same things. Every other continent moved a lot – Australia was in Antarctica; now it’s is upwards. Every continent has had gigantic changes, but this is the only one that didn’t change.

There are many things that have to be studied. Volcanism, faults, the opening of the Atlantic… There are many topics that need global understanding. Just to say one, why is important for Japan to study the opening of the Atlantic? The opening of Atlantic was a gigantic deposition of evaporites; hundreds of maybe thousands of meters of evaporites all around Brazil. So, just imagine how much salt has been stored in a few years, and how the condition of the sea changed in relation to this. The Atlantic opening was a major cause of climatic changes, completely. I mean, not just the climate, but mainly the chemistry of the oceans also changed completely because of this gigantic deposition of evaporites building up. So, gigantic, global interesting questions to be answered.

BMR: Do you think there’s been sort of lack of understanding from government and funding agencies to promote ocean drilling within Brazil? I mean, have you been trying to convince about the participation of Brazil within IODP?

LJ: We are now completely supported. We have an institute. So, the government understood the importance. The problem, now, is the JR, that is going to retire and we do know [what will happen]. The problem now is IODP³, and there’s only one cruise per year, or maybe two, and it’s very small, very competitive… I mean, before we had four or five expeditions per year; now we have one planned per year and it’s just a big change. And the [Brazilian] group is big, and there are a lot of proposals to be done. We still haven’t understood if joining IODP³, IODP³ will give us the priority, because no holes have been drilled in Brazil. Not just in the last thirty years, but also from the ones that have been approved. So, if we join IODP³ and IODP³ says, “Yes, okay, we give you priority next year, we can drill…”, that’s going to be fantastic! One, only one drilling. Because we can sell it to the community. We can sell it; we can call journalist, we call television, or we call papers… Everyone. And then, it’s going to boost the funding. Is going to boost politically. Is going to change everything.

Luigi during two IODP expeditions: left, posing with Paola Vannucchi at the kitchen of the DV/JOIDES Resolution — getting ready to cook an Italian dinner — during expedition 344 (2012); and right, with Luca Lanci during IODP expedition 359 (2015). Photo by Tim Fulton, IODP/TAMU.

BMR: What would be the scientific priorities that attract the Brazilian community, Brazilian public?

LJ: I would say the fact that, nowadays, one of the most important topics related to climate change and many other points, is sea level changes. But sea level changes is not an easy thing. The most important record of sea level change we have it in front of New Jersey, in front of New York. Is a passive margin, is the Atlantic… There are several things that make it almost perfect. So, is it used as a model of sea level change. But there, we only use the sea level change in relation to siliciclastic environment. So, you have rivers, glaciations and sea level changes related to that. While if you are in an equatorial environment with no rivers, then you have 100% of the sea level response. And if you have corals and hemipelagic material, you can work with them. And then, exactly understand how was really the sea level changing.

And this is possible in Brazil, because it’s a passive margin; because you have small rivers, not terrigenous material; you have gigantic production of carbonates; and you have excellent preservation; pelagic and hemipelagic material; no tectonics… So, you have the perfect place to study for the last 70 million years, hundred million years, sea level changes. It is a laboratory.

And what it means, because you have underwater currents, bottom underwater currents coming from the Arctic and from Antarctic, both, and sometimes in relation to glacial periods. So you say, “ah, it’s difficult to work and understand if you are in a shallow environment”, but just in front you have the deep environment. And in the deep environment you have deep water currents coming from Antarctica, deep water currents coming from Arctic, and each one are changing their position in relation to the glaciations, to the ice.

So you have a direct – it’s unbelievable – in the equator, you have a direct response of the bottom currents coming from an Arctic and Antarctic. So, what what’s going on in Antarctica and Arctic, both of them, you are in the only place in the world that you can see what’s happening in Antarctica, in the Arctic, and what happen in the equatorial. In the same place.

So, is an incredible condition for the reconstruction of climate in the past. Is probably the best place, today, to go. And the Atlantic is already known as one of the best places in terms of Ceara Rise, the Demerara rise, the Walvis Ridge/Rio Grande Rise… The most important records are from those place sites. But those sites have sometimes issues: they are deep, they are… there are some problems, like everywhere. So, we see that in the equatorial margin there is potential to have all these limits of the other drillings in the Southern Atlantic. So, it’s very important and the SEP knows that. That’s why they have evaluated us as ‘excellent’. Not many drilling proposals have been evaluated as ‘excellent’. So, there is big potential. I might say that this is one of the most important points.

BMR: I’m aware we are running out of time, so let me ask you just one more question. I know you have collaborated in a lot of other international projects, organizations, and even government committees. What is different or similar, in IODP, to other kinds of international collaborations and projects?

LJ: IODP is unique. IODP is a… there are tons of project. You got the funding, you make the meetings, and you establish what you have to do; everybody does its thing, and you then publish. The program finishes and everybody goes home. Sometimes you do another project, similar or an extension; somebody goes out, somebody comes in… these projects are maximum 5 years.

IODP was different. It’s a way of thinking. Is a way of doing. It was completely another thing. Was very constructive. There was a big team from every country. Everybody was joining, sharing science, knowledge… Was beautiful. And it is not the case that the most important understandings of the science in the deep sea come from IODP, because was and the state-of-the-art, everything was done in very high quality standards; everything was done in a very – let’s say also clear, clean way.

So, the proposal, and acceptance, and the schedule, and the application… It was a structure that grew up along years, that was a very important achievement for the international community. And nowadays, that we see that every country is going apart, it’s very sad to see that, actually, we were able to do this science together. It was difficult, but we were able to do it. And now, everything’s broken. So, it’s very sad. It’s very sad in terms of science, in terms of the international community together.

IODP was really an incredible success in terms of the international collaboration for so many years… Scientists from different countries, getting together and doing science together was beautiful, beautiful, beautiful! And it’s so sad; I’m thinking about the teaching. This material was always in the classes in every country. IODP was the base of many studies, many exercises and many works. And it won’t be there anymore. So that means that next generation won’t have this model of sharing science, like the previous one. Like me. I think it’s going to be bad also for the next generation, not having this opportunity to have this material to do science together. This is I think one of the main disasters. It is a disaster. It’s terrible for the next generation, for the next science, for the future. And it doesn’t seem that that we are going to solve it, because the Chinese have the Meng Xiang, and the Japan ship is completely busy doing other things, not drilling, for everybody. The US don’t have a ship anymore. And Europe, don’t have ship. So it’s terrible, is sad. And is sad that also we arrived to this point, because it’s long time that US was saying that Europe has to move because the JR had to retire at one point. Everybody was using JR, but nobody was really valorizing. I mean, within the US, everything is possible because of you, and it was really not valued. So, again, the US was doing 4-5 cruises per year; Europe was doing maximum one per year. So, was a big difference. But then, half of the participants were probably European. So, was not very equal, in terms of things.

So, I think that it’s a problem that things didn’t work anymore. It’s a divorce. It’s very sad, like every divorce.

BMR: I guess everyone wants it to become one again, at some point, right?

LJ: Yeah, but I don’t think there’s condition nowadays, because the Meng Xiang is owned by the Chinese, and Europe and the US want to share and do things with them. It’s a beautiful ship, I visited it. I went there.

BMR: The Chinese? Were you in the launching ceremony?

LJ: Yes, I was there. I was the only Brazilian. There were only 10 people – Jamie Austin, Carl Brenner… there were a few people around the world, and I was there. I saw it. Unbelievable. It’s another thing. Every lab…. It’s amazing. Amazing. Beautiful. Very well done, very nicely constructed… Every laboratory is state of the art. Is perfect; beautiful. And I don’t think that the US or Europe are going to go with them. I don’t think so. It’s difficult. I mean, the politics are complicated, and the US don’t have a place to build a ship. It’s very expensive for them. And Europe… I don’t know if they are thinking to build a ship for them, but they are using platforms that have a lot of limits for sciences. For science, is not working. One thing is drilling for a company, but another thing is to have a ship with laboratories, where you can do… if you have a ship for drilling scientifically, stratigraphic cores being measured inside the ship, it’s another thing. You can do things that in a Mission Specific Platform you cannot do. You collect the cores and you bring them to Bremen, then you split them after some months… It’s different. The cool stuff is done in the ship, drilling. There’s no sense in doing it in two steps. So…

BMR: I understand, yes. Being onboard is quite unique, it’s the relationships that develop, the ideas, the research done together… Well, I think we have covered many points. I don’t know if you think there’s any particular gap that we haven’t covered? I think the story of Brazil in IODP it’s been more or less covered.

LJ: Yes, I think I told you everything (laughs).

BMR: If there’s something in particular, you’d like to add or explain, go ahead and I’ll be happy.

LJ: In Brazil, now, we are in a good position for IODP. We are looking for more support through some federal funding to enter the IODP³. Our priority now is that the JR comes to Brazil to do the cruises that we had approved. And we are working also in some agreements; some possible agreements in the future with the Chinese, which they show to be very positive in establishing some collaboration with Brazil; but they won’t be able to come to the South Atlantic in the next couple of years.

So, our priority now is the JR, which is what we have in the table, because the ship although it’s retired inside IODP, it’s possible still to hire the ship to drill. And NSF is supportive of that. So, also, if IODP itself doesn’t work, NSF is able to hire the JR to do some coring. They don’t have the funding at all, so that’s why we are looking for… I mean, it’s not big money for an oil company; it’s not big money for a country, but if you want to make a project, it’s a lot of money. It’s about 30, 40 million of dollars. But this is the money to have the JR for drilling in Brazil for two years.

BMR: For two whole years? Do you mean, to do several expeditions?

LJ: Yeah, I don’t remember exactly, but it’s two years because it’s to do the four expeditions approved in Brazil.

BMR: Wow.

LJ: It’s a good deal but it’s also a lot of money. We are trying to have it approved in terms of government.

BMR: It will be exciting to see it happening – I hope it happens!

LJ: Yes, I hope it too.

BMR: Well, thank you very, very much for your time. It was a great talk.

LJ: Thank you, it was a pleasure.