Ron Hackney

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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 Ron Hackney by Beatriz Martinez-Rius on 2024 November 21, Chikyu (IODP Expedition 405). [link]

Beatriz Martinez-Rius (BMR): Today is November 24 of 2024. I am on board Chikyu in IODP expedition 405, and I’m with Ron Hackney. Thank you very much. Can you please say your name, your affiliation, and current position?

Ron Hackney (RH): I’m Ron Hackney, I’m the director of the Australian-New Zealand International Scientific Drilling Consortium (ANZIC), and that office is hosted by the Australian National University in Canberra, in Australia.

BMR: Are you doing research, as well as being the ANZIC program director?

RH: Yes. The position I have at ANU is an academic position, but most of my time is taken up with keeping the ANZIC office going, keeping the collaboration going, interacting with the international partners… But, yes, I am expected to do a little bit of research and a bit of teaching, as well. I’ve been doing a little bit of teaching in an Applied Geophysics course, because I’m a geophysicist by background; and the research, I guess, being here on expedition 405 – the last IODP expedition – is part of the research I’m trying to get involved in.

BMR: For how long have you been program director of ANZIC?

RH: I’ve been the director of ANZIC since 1st of July of 2022. So, about two and a half years, now. Overall, I’m probably a relatively newcomer to IODP and whatever’s coming next.

BMR: Let’s start from the beginning and then let’s go to ANZIC. My first question to everyone is, where are you from?

RH: I grew up in a small town about an hour south of Canberra called Cooma, which is on the way to the Snowy Mountains in Australia. I was actually born in Canberra, then we moved to Cooma when I was five years old. I grew up there, went to school there, high school there… I guess that’s where I have my first memory of an interest in geoscience when, in year nine – I was probably 14 or 15 years old – I did an assignment on Mount Saint Helens, photocopying things from National Geographic, sticking it on a poster and coloring it in. I still have it. And I keep meaning to put it up on my office wall.

After that, I went back to Canberra to do my undergraduate studies at the ANU [Australian National University]. After four years there, I went to New Zealand for a couple of years, did a master’s in New Zealand, which was a project in Antarctica – there’s a really interesting analogy between that project being in Antarctica and being on a ship. So, I did a master’s there. I did my PhD at the University of Western Australia, in Perth, and then went to Germany for six years; before coming back to Australia and working at Geoscience Australia, which is the federal government agency for geoscience. Then, two and a half years ago, I left that position and took up the role of director of ANZIC.

BMR: Was there anyone in your family who was a scientist or who was kind of influential for you, to choose this career?

RH: My dad’s an electrical engineer, and I always liked the technical, scientific… Those kinds of things at school. I enjoyed physics and maths, and other things like engineering technical drawing. When I went to university, I wasn’t really sure what I was going to do, but engineering sounded pretty good because it had a bit of everything, the sciences and the technical aspects. But I didn’t quite get enough marks to get into the engineering course at ANU. I started in the first year doing all the same courses and through that, ironically, because I became a geophysicist, there was a computer programing course, and I hated it – I should not admit those kinds of things – but, yeah, just didn’t quite click. My girlfriend at the time suggested, “Hey, maybe you should try this Geology course”. I looked at that, it looked okay, and that was the turning point. That was really what changed it. My parents always very much took a, “Follow your interests” approach, supportive of everything. Engineering seemed like something maybe I was familiar with, but I don’t remember consciously thinking that my studies had to be engineering or anything else.

Well, if I was anything other than a scientist, I might be a pilot, because I like aeroplanes and I love being up in the air and looking down on the world. So, yeah, that’s how it all came about as a geoscientist, I guess.

BMR: I guess then you really enjoyed the helicopter ride [to Chikyu].

RH: Yeah, yeah.

BMR: So, that was your entry point to geophysics.

RH: Yeah. At university I was doing a range of subjects. I kept doing physics and maths, and into the later years of university, I remember the head of the department at ANU, Mike Rickard, at the time said to me, “You maybe should try some of this geophysics stuff because you obviously are good at the geology, but you’re still doing the maths and physics, so maybe you should have a go at that”. And I did enjoy that, though I probably became a geophysicist with that master’s project in Antarctica.

I did decide at the end of the second year that I’d love to go to Antarctica, after I saw a guy giving a talk about going there. So, I started exploring some options, and I met someone who had suggested, “Try in New Zealand, because there’s some people there”, and gave me a couple of names. One was a granite petrologist. One was a geophysicist. And in the end, the geophysicist was the one who offered a place. That was a great example of why you shouldn’t procrastinate, because I put off contacting this kind of scary, very senior important person in New Zealand thinking, “Oh, how do I do that?”, and I ended up – I remember, I finally got up the courage to contact him on a Thursday and he said, “Oh, we’re deciding on Monday who we’re taking as a student”. So, I guess I learned a lesson from that – don’t procrastinate or you might miss out.

But that’s why I became a geophysicist and went more down that path. Otherwise, I might have been a granite petrologist. It worked out pretty well. But I always say I’m more the geo than the physics, because I’m not particularly strong in the maths and the coding, and all that kind of thing. But, yeah, I really love the way that geophysics can help you see below the surface and understand a bit about the geology.

BMR: When you went to Antarctica, was this a starting point for you to study the seafloor?

RH: No, no, no. I guess I only really started looking at marine science, marine geophysics, when I moved to Geoscience Australia, because that was a position in one of the offshore teams. They were looking for someone who works with gravity and magnetic data to understand sedimentary basins, and that was where my background was. The project in Antarctica was gravity and magnetics on a seismic traverse, across the ice cap. Then, the PhD was a similar thing in Western Australia. And then, I kept doing that when I was in Germany.

In that role at Geoscience Australia, only then did I come into the marine geophysics side of things. And again, ironically, the issue when I was an undergraduate is that I didn’t do any of the sedimentology courses because I was doing the geophysics. But then, I came into a position which was sedimentary basins, basin analysis, and all that kind of thing. I guess there I really got an appreciation for the amazing way you can use sedimentology to understand the past. When you look at seismic images and see, for example, paleo-river channels from 200 million years ago, it just blows my mind that you can actually see those things captured in the rock record.

BMR: Yes, and then contrast the sediments with the geophysical data.

RH: Yeah. It’s fascinating the way you can pull out those stories of the past from that kind of thing, which is what the scientific drilling does, as well.

BMR: Why did you move to Geoscience Australia? And also, why did you decide to go into a federal government agency?

RH: It’s interesting, a lot of people when you ask them, “What have been the drivers of your career changes?”, it could be, “I wanted to go and work with that person”, “I wanted to work on a particular topic”… But a lot of the things I’ve done have been more like, “Where do I want to be?”. And the very first time was, “I want to be in Antarctica”. That led me to New Zealand. After that, okay, maybe it wasn’t so much – my wife got a job in Perth, so we moved to Perth, and I eventually did the PhD.

I wanted to live in Germany because I have German connections. My mum was born in Germany. She immigrated to Australia when she was about eight years old, but we still had a lot of contact with the relatives there, and I wanted to go and live there, experience it, learn German… I had the goal that my grandmother would come one more time to Germany, and I would travel with her to see some of the places where she grew up. I did that, but she was unfortunately too old to come and join me.

And then, coming to work at Geoscience Australia was, it was time to come back to home. My wife’s also from Canberra. So, it was looking for an opportunity in Canberra and it came up in Geoscience Australia, in the government agency. I had a great 15 years working there, as well. As a government agency, you don’t have as much freedom to choose your path in your science; but an agency like Geoscience Australia does amazing science, and there’s an amazing group of passionate, dedicated scientists, as well. I had some really great experiences working there. Going out on a ship for the first time, working in some really remote parts of Australia, got some flying in helicopters… That kind of thing. So, yeah, there was nothing wrong with working there. The science you do in a government agency can be just as exciting as anything else.

BMR: You have just mentioned it, but I’d like to ask you to expand a bit more on how it happened, that you started looking beneath the ocean? I’m asking because I’m curious to understand what kind of work Geoscience Australia does in the seafloor.

RH: In an agency like Geoscience Australia, back then, it was basin analysis. It was related to energy exploration – so, oil and gas. That’s probably waned a little bit over the last few years. That’s about understanding the basin dynamics, how the basin formed, whether you’ve got the right rocks in there for source rocks… There was a team of basin analysts who do all the subsidence modeling, understanding the thermal history of the basins; the geophysicists providing the constraints for the geometry of the basin; organic chemists looking at the chemistry of the materials in the basin… So, really integrated teams bringing all that stuff together. That was the aspect, I guess, of the team that I came into, but there would also be teams looking at just mapping the seafloor, using multibeam bathymetry mapping; and also, not just to map the seafloor but to understand the habitats on the seafloor, the nature of the seafloor.

So, really, it was driven by building up a baseline of understanding what’s on the seafloor in Australia’s marine jurisdiction – which is massive, bigger than the continent itself, extending to Antarctica. But we can’t know what effects we’re potentially going to have on the seafloor if we don’t know what’s there in the first place. It’s no good to come and look at the seafloor after you’ve gone and built a series of windmills on the seafloor. You need to have that baseline before so you can compare.

So, yeah, that was where the marine science came in. The first project I was involved in was on the Lord Howe Rise, looking at sedimentary basins out there. The Lord Howe rise is a piece of submerged extended continental crust, maybe better known these days as Zealandia, the northern part of Zealandia. That’s, I guess, where my connection into IODP came in, as well. But we can talk about that in a moment.

BMR: Sure. Let me ask you first, was there something that you needed to learn in order to start doing your job offshore, at that point?

RH: I mentioned before about not having done sedimentology at university. So, there was a fair bit of trying to understand that; and aspects of understanding basin dynamics and how the geophysical data can help understand that. I had a really great mentor there, at Geoscience Australia – might as well give him a shout out: Peter Petkovic was his name. He was a geophysicist, did similar things to me, and really working closely with someone like that, picking up all the tricks… I guess I had the geophysical basis, but applying it to that specific geological setting, it was helpful to have a geophysicist who’d been in that space for a lot longer. But, of course, everybody worked really well together. Everybody would explain things. I explained the geophysics to the geologists and vice-versa. So, yeah, it was a great learning curve, and I really did some great things in that sort of space. I did eventually move away from the marine area and into the onshore, as well.

So, there was that aspect of sedimentary basins which I never really worked on, and I had to pick up and learn it. The project in Western Australia for my PhD was looking at Archean, Proterozoic geology. And, in Germany, I was involved in a project in the Andes for the first three years. So, mountain building, subduction zones… Again, there’s a connection back to what we’re doing on this expedition. [But Geoscience Australia] was the first time I’d really worked in geoscience with a focus on the offshore, sedimentary basins.

BMR: How did you learn about scientific ocean drilling?

RH: Scientific ocean drilling, IODP, was always a sort of a vague awareness of it all through my career, I guess, but never really with an appreciation of how massive and significant, and what a huge impact it had. That only came about when I started at Geoscience Australia, and I started working on the project on the Lord Howe Rise.

I’d started moving into projects on the other side of the country, on the west coast of Australia. But, at the same time, there was a thing bubbling in the background about an IODP, a scientific drilling proposal on the Lord Howe Rise, to understand one of these sedimentary basins. Those sedimentary basins were ultimately recognized as having a full history of the Cretaceous, back 100 million years or more, with potential to answer questions about paleoclimate through the Cretaceous in the Southern Hemisphere; which my understanding at the time was there was a bit of a lack of data in the Southern hemisphere, particularly in that region. But also, the tectonics of these narrow continental ribbons, which the Lord Howe Rise was when it separated from Australia. I know the microbiologists were really happy just thinking, “Oh, are there some coal beds down in the bottom of the basin that might have microbes in them? That would be really useful to test the limits of life on Earth”.

It was a few years after I’d moved into another project that I was asked to attend a workshop in Sydney. I had no idea what it was, and no idea why I was invited to attend. It was a workshop to discuss this IODP proposal for drilling on the Lord Howe Rise. And, I guess it’s one of those coincidences in life. The person who was leading that project decided to leave Geoscience Australia and I was asked initially, and then there was a little bit of a selection process as well, for somebody to lead that project, that proposal for the Lord Howe Rise. So, all of a sudden, I was working back on the Lord Howe Rise. It was an IODP proposal. There was some money from Geoscience Australia and JAMSTEC for site surveys – to do the preliminary work you need to do in advance of those drilling projects.

It was only then that I started to learn about IODP. Talking to those different communities of scientists – the paleo-climate people, the microbiology people, the tectonics people… –that you start to hear some of the really amazing stories. To me, on the paleo-climate side, it’s just incredible what we’ve learned about past climate, and what might happen in the future with climate, from ocean drilling. And thinking that we wouldn’t know what we know without having been able to access the sediments below the seafloor, to understand that. The other day, Dan Brinkhuis was showing me a video of someone from the Netherlands saying that probably 50% of all knowledge of the oceans comes from scientific drilling. Maybe that’s a bold claim, but it wouldn’t surprise me at all.

And then, there’s the stories of the microbiology side of things. The one that really always blows my mind is one of the expeditions with Chikyu – the ship that we’re sitting on now – they drilled 2.5km below the seafloor into coal beds that were 20 million years old. They were able to extract microbes that were not dead, and when they were given nutrients again, they all came back to life. And, the stories of these things surviving for 20 million years, barely evolving, so similar to what they were 20 million years ago, and they are only breeding once every 10,000 years or something, it’s just like, wow.

That’s where I really got an appreciation for what IODP can do. And I guess I caught the bug, and was hooked on it. I also applied, and Geoscience Australia was generous enough to let me take up the offer to be on the Science Evaluation Panel for IODP. And, again, that was an amazing experience to see the sort of proposals that come through, learn about the process of how things happen… The timelines in the lead up to having these big expeditions happen, which can be a decade. They can be as quick as a couple of years, sometimes. But I think that, being involved in that [Lord Howe Rise] proposal – the unique thing about IODP is, when you submit a proposal, you’re kind of encouraged to interact with the reviewers of that proposal, to improve it as it goes through the system. So, a very supportive and constructive process for setting up a project. It was really good to have gone through that process as a proponent on a proposal, but also being on the panel and providing that feedback, and learning the whole time.

I say to a lot of people, I’ve always found – maybe it’s a bit of a flaw, in a way – that I’ve always found other people’s science more interesting than my own. So, being in that kind of setting where you’re reading the proposals, learning the science, it’s just amazing. So, yeah, I was really pleased to have that opportunity.

I guess a lot of people say they get that kind of thing in their blood. When you think about the amazing science that happens, it’s more and more important – or it should have been important – that we think about, “okay, what’s the impact of that science for the world, for humanity, for society…”, that kind of thing. The discoveries that come from scientific drilling really have made a difference, in terms of what we know about the climate, but also natural hazards, as well. It’s a great feeling knowing that maybe what you can do and understand is going to make a small difference to mitigating the hazards that come from those earthquakes, and tsunamis and things.

BMR: You have entered into the community of scientific ocean drilling sort of in the opposite direction than most of the people. Because instead of accessing through participating as scientist and then moving to a more advisory position, you started in an advisory position and proponent, and then participant. That’s an interesting pathway.

RH: Yeah. I think that has advantages and disadvantages. The disadvantage is, I’m sitting on an expedition now, not having that sort of background. Maybe I’m like a new PhD student who’s come on and it’s all so new. And I’m learning amazing new stuff, but feeling a bit lost about, “What is my real contribution?” But, you know, I’ve been around long enough to know that, take your time as you get in amongst things, you talk to people, and you realize where your expertise can contribute to the whole problem. And with time, that will come. So, that’s maybe a disadvantage, but it’s not something that should be seen as a long term disadvantage.

Perhaps the advantage is, a lot of people, I think in science or any field, when we’re advocating to government or the people who provide the funding to do the science about the importance of it, in a lot of ways you get caught up in “preaching to the converted”. So, you’re talking about something you love, something you think is important, but you’re someone who’s been involved in that for a long time. So, everybody can say, “Yeah, yeah. You’re just saying it because you’ve done it for so long”. So maybe it’s an advantage for someone like me, to be able to share that. I’ve realized much later in my career the importance of this, and be able to come in as an advocate for the importance of being able to access samples from below the seafloor, and below the surface in general; and maybe have a slightly different perspective, or a slightly different appreciation for how we might promote the importance of what we’re doing here. So, yeah, I like to think that’s maybe a small advantage, having come into it late and really appreciating suddenly that, “Hey, hang on, here’s something that’s really good that we have to keep going”.

BMR: Going back in time, when you first started to get in touch with scientific ocean drilling, you mentioned one workshop happening in Australia where you were invited. That was your first time. Was that an ANZIC-only workshop, to decide the feasibility of the expedition? Or was it an international workshop?

RH: It was international, but it was limited international. So, it was largely the Australian and New Zealand community – I guess ANZIC focus. But it was really driven by Geoscience Australia at that time, because they were the ones who were pushing the proposal.

We had some people from JAMSTEC, the Japan Agency for Marine Science and Technology. They were involved because the idea was to bring the Chikyu to do this drilling, because it needed the capabilities of Chikyu to drill into a sedimentary basin on the Lord Howe Rise. The riser drilling. So, being able to isolate the drill hole from the ocean so that you can control the pressure, and these things, when you’re drilling into a deep basin. The idea was to drill about 2.5km or three kilometers deep in about 1.5 km of water.

BMR: And this was an Australian proposal.

RH: Yes, it was Australia leading the proposal itself. In the end it had international proponents from the US, Europe, Japan, and a few from Australia and New Zealand as well, of course. But that workshop was a sort of a kickoff. The pre-proposal had been submitted. So, the first step in the proposal process had been done. And then, it was taking the feedback from that, which was great – “sounds like a good idea to progress to a full proposal”. Then, it was really about setting up how to do that. The discussions were around, and a lot of that was driven by Mike Coffin – you said you’ve talked to him already about IODP. One of the main questions was, what’s going to be the main driver for this proposal? Is it going to be the tectonics? Is it going to be the paleoclimate? Could it even be the microbiology? Because the seismic data suggested that there could have been some coal beds in the bottom of these basins and they could harbor life. The microbiology people were like, “Wow, that would be amazing to get to 100 million year old coal beds and see if there’s anything still there”. So, that was in an initial workshop. It was instigated locally, with some international participation.

 But then, recognizing that IODP proposals need to be international, picking and bringing in some of the experts. I think the full proposal, when it was first submitted, had almost 40 proponents on it – which might have been part of the trigger when the Science Evaluation Panel said, “No, there’s now a proponent limit of 20”. We had to make some tough decisions about who to drop off the proposal. So, yeah, that proposal had some people from around the world involved in it.

BMR: What happened to that proposal? Did you manage to bring Chikyu to do it?

RH: No. The challenge with that proposal, and the challenge with a lot of Chikyu expeditions, is they went through the system as what was referred to as a Complementary Project Proposal, CPP, which means that it’s beyond what IODP could fund and cover at the time. And this expedition would have been really, really expensive. It was 800km east of Brisbane so, the logistics of getting people and supplies transferred between Brisbane and that site were very challenging, too far for helicopters. You can imagine, the cost for that is probably twice the cost of this one (note: IODP Expedition 405). I don’t know how much this one cost, I won’t put the number on the record, but it was really expensive. So, the proposal went through the system and was supported by the Science Evaluation Panel, and it went to the Chikyu IODP board for planning and implementation.

In all of that, there was a lot of discussions, meetings and planning for the expedition to happen. But the sticking point is the funding. It was always said from the Japan side that they would match the funding if Australia was able to secure the funding. And, for that to happen in Australia, a lot of political things had to align. I maintain that we got pretty close, but the funding hasn’t come through yet, and it’s still one of those things that with government, you never know. They might suddenly say, “Hey, hang on, I remember someone said about ten years ago that we should maybe go and do something on the Lord Howe Rise. Maybe we should do that now”. Probably the proposal now has sort of stalled because the Science Evaluation Panel (SEP) of IODP doesn’t exist anymore. So, it would require a new proposal. It was sort of ticked off by the SEP in 2017, so a lot of time has passed since that happened. A lot of things have obviously changed in that time, as well. But there was a lot of discussions with JAMSTEC about planning, and there was pretty much a plan ready to go. If the funding had come through, the plan was actually to do the drilling in 2020. We know what happened in 2020! The implications for that, we can only imagine and speculate whether it would have gone ahead or how it would have changed.

So, the idea for scientific drilling on the Lord Howe Rise is still there, and it could be resurrected in a slightly different scale with a different drilling vessel. But I know that everybody involved at the time – and some of them from the JAMSTEC side are on the ship today – the operations people, the engineers… I think would love to see it happen. It would bring some amazing, unique geology insight into that region, as well. So, let’s see.

BMR: This is super interesting because it makes you realize that although we have very powerful tools now, like Chikyu, which is a very powerful scientific tool in terms of technology and engineering, there are a lot of places in the world that, for logistic reasons, can’t be explored.

RH: Yeah. I’d like to think of it in the sense that anything is possible, it just comes down to a matter of cost. You could go to the furthest reaches of the world, which is the middle of the Pacific, the furthest from land. You could do it. But, the costs and the logistics of doing it are maybe the limitation. To some extent, for me as a scientist, one of the most fascinating things about science is that science is a process of answering questions, trying to understand; but behind all of that, there’s the operational side, the logistical side of it, and we’ve got a plan. Let’s go and do it. Even before the plan comes off, there might be a moment where we stop – Well, hang on a minute, we didn’t think of that and now we need to revise the plans.

I know this from the Lord Howe Rise proposal, when we changed the preferred site for drilling. We had two areas which we were looking at, which are maybe 100km apart. And we chose one site to be the primary site. We’d acquired a lot of seismic data at that preferred site on a site survey with JAMSTEC as well. We also acquired some other data, but less, at the other site. I remember having the feeling myself, there was something in the back of my mind which I was having doubts about, maybe the seismic data was telling us that there was some kind of reflector in the basin which was obscuring the deepest sediments in the depo-center we’d chosen to drill. We concluded, “Okay, this basin is accessible for the rough budget we think is realistic to ask for. It means that we can drill this deep and we’ll get the full sedimentary sequence”. But then, there was something telling me, “Hang on a minute. Maybe there’s more below what we think is the bottom of the basin”, meaning we’d spend all that money and miss the main target.

So, to me, there was a huge element of risk. We did a little bit of testing and modeling, particularly with the gravity data, which was I guess my expertise, and thinking, “Well, yeah, there’s enough uncertainty there that maybe it’s very risky to go and drill it, because we might actually drill it and only find we’re halfway through”. And when you go to all that much trouble, that wouldn’t be very good. So, we shifted the primary site to another area, which I guess really caused complications for the engineers who had to make a new plan. But I think in the end that would have been the right decision.

But of course, like all of these things, when you go to drill it, and get the samples, it’s almost always different to how you thought it was. And, to me, that’s one of the really exciting things about science. We’ve seen it on this expedition, as well. When you see the co-chiefs explaining the reasoning behind the decision to change plans or have a slightly different drilling strategy, trying to second guess the geology based on that. And then you make a decision and you go and do it, and you get something, but you’ll never know what the alternative could have brought you. That’s, to me, one of the – it sounds a bit perverse or something, but – you think you’ve got it, you progress down a path, and then one little thing comes along, a bit of evidence or something and says, “No, that can’t be it”. So, I think that’s something to ride with science. Just to accept what comes out. And in big projects like this, I’m sure that it’s never quite what you thought it was.

BMR: I guess you get this sort of unexpected outcome both at a small scale – you get samples or data from the borehole and it’s not exactly what you expected; but also, at a larger scale – at the scale of the entire basin. But you need to plan over something, right?

RH: Yeah. I think a classic one was the attempt with Chikyu to drill to the plate boundary fault with riser drilling in the Nankai Trough. I think most people will know that wasn’t successful, which is, to everybody involved, devastating. But, in a lot of ways, that’s the risk. It’s like a perfect demonstration of the risk of trying these things. You’ll never do it if you don’t try. And you learn so much when it doesn’t work. At the time, it’s probably really devastating. But hopefully, in a few years after, people start to realize that, “Yeah, well, we tried, we made all the right decisions based on the information that was in front of us. Sure, we maybe could have tried different things, but we’ll never know. If it ever happens again in the future, we’ll be far better informed”.

There’s actually a learning curve very clear after each of these expeditions. In talking to the co-chiefs about JFAST (IODP Expedition 343), it’s clear that the approach we are seeing now on JTRACK is the result of a lot of thinking about the things that went wrong and the things that went well during JFAST. It’s interesting when you see all these processes within IODP based on what’s been done before.

I guess it’s similar in space exploration as well, “Oh, my probe crashed on Mars. What do we have to change to get it right next time?”. It just blows my mind that now, at SpaceX, they’re recovering rockets and catching them with hooks in the air. It’s just incredible. And yes, sure, you lose lots on the way, but I think that’s something that even with my kids, you try and say, “Well, you’re only going to learn if you make mistakes. And now you’re not only going to learn, but you will learn from the mistakes, as well”. I think it’s a really healthy environment, if you’re in a work environment where people will accept that risk taking, and recognize that you can learn from those mistakes. And sure, you want to balance the risk, cost, and all of that, but you can’t make the big steps unless you do take those risks.

BMR: Now, let’s move to your next position within IODP, which I believe was becoming Program Director. How come, that you got into that position?

RH: It was a very sad situation that I came into it, because the previous director – who would be known to many who might listen to this – Leanne Armand was the director, but unfortunately, she passed away from a very aggressive form of cancer. I feel privileged that I’m in the position following her, always trying to build on her legacy.

I know I had a pretty good relationship with Leanne as the time went on. I had a fair bit of interaction with her because Geoscience Australia (GA) was part of the ANZIC consortium, and I represented GA at a few of the governance meetings. So, I always knew Leanne and I did have a call from Kelly Kenney, who was the ANZIC Administrator, who said, “Ron, you should apply for this position when it comes up”. That, to me, was a little signal that Leanne was thinking that maybe I could do this job okay.

The position did come up because, so sadly, she passed away. What a pity Bea, that you won’t get the chance to interview Leanne. Her story is also a key story in IODP.

I applied – and there’s a certain element of risk when you step from a stable government job to a position that’s dependent on funding – and ANZIC, over the last five years or more, has really been living from short-term funding. So, there was no guarantee that the position would have lasted even more than a year. This was probably the first time I’d chosen a job because I wanted the job rather than, like I said to you earlier, “Where do I want to be?”. That sort of moved me around and changed the focus of the things I did because, “Oh, there’s a chance to go to Germany!” so, I’ll go and work on the Andes.

But this, I think, was the first time I thought, “Yeah, that would be a really, really great job”. It’s a job that involves supporting the science. So, learning – I have the chance every day to learn about the science. It’s the international engagement – and I love the international engagement. I love the cultural differences. I love learning and appreciating those cultural differences and being a part of it. The IODP community is a strong community – I mean, I guess all science communities are like that. But IODP is really focused around a central thing of going to get those cores from the ocean floor. So, it had a bit of everything that I really like. The opportunity to travel a bit as well, to interact with all the different people…

It was a good time to take on something that just sounded so appealing. And it’s been everything I expected it to be: there is the international engagement, and the science; and traveling around Australia to meet our partners in Australia… ANZIC has 19 different member organizations, which mostly are universities, in Australia and New Zealand, plus Geoscience Australia and in New Zealand, GNS and NIWA, which is the Institute of Water and Atmosphere in New Zealand. GNS is similar to Geoscience Australia. So, traveling to those places, listening the state of science ideas, supporting the experienced people to continue their involvement in scientific drilling, getting some young people involved, seeing the stuff that’s coming out of those things… It’s really rewarding. It’s really satisfying to be able to support that.

I think landing in the position when I did was – I guess I should have seen it coming – but it’s been quite challenging in the sense that, we know that IODP, the International Ocean Discovery Program, is now officially ended. I guess this Expedition 405 is sort of prolonging that a little bit. So, it’s been an interesting time as the international community goes through those discussions of what’s coming next. I’m pretty sure something’s going to happen. We know things are going to happen. It’s just going to be in a different sense. And, it’s going to be interesting to see how ANZIC, with its particular set up and requirements and expectations, how it’s going to slot into whatever does come next. Yeah, it was fortuitous for me that I came into this role, under the not so good circumstances, of course. But here I am now, and it’s so far, so good.

BMR: What has been the most challenging part of becoming director of ANZIC? What kind of skills you’ve had to learn or develop for this position?

RH: I think I can split it into two parts. What are the skills that you bring to the role? Having come from a government agency, I think for this role has actually been a huge advantage. Because there’s a lot of dealing with contracts, agreements… That kind of thing. In the role I had with Geoscience Australia before I moved to ANZIC, I was a manager leading a Geophysics Section, and a lot of that is contracts, agreements, the human resources side, managing the budget… I think when you come into a role like ANZIC Director, there’s the science aspect of it. So, overseeing that and keeping in touch with all of that, but there’s also just the administration parts of it. And that’s all really important. You’ve got to be familiar with how those processes work with grants and agreements, but at the same time have an interest in the science. So, I think that everything I’ve done in the past seemed to fit as a lead up to this role. I love interacting with people, as well. So, that side of it is great.

What have I had to learn?… I mean, I’m learning stuff every day (laughs). Not just science, but how to interact with people, in a way. Maybe it’s more of an evolution than learning something new, but – I haven’t stopped to think about that. It’s been an amazing learning experience. And there’s aspects of learning to manage because, like I said at the start, it’s an academic position. So, balancing that, in this role, there’s more than enough tasks that you could work 100, 120% on the director role. So, trying to balance the expectation to be doing a bit of research and teaching, as well, is maybe the biggest thing.

I saw that with Leanne, my predecessor, as well. She, probably having come from a more academic background, had a much stronger research program and research network. Trying to balance that was really trying, I guess, to a large extent. For me, that was happening in my previous job, as well. I was learning to balance that work expectation – and there’s always so much to do — But stepping back and stopping, and taking the time out, is also something that we need to learn.

Because in all of these things, I think everyone, everywhere is overworked, under-resourced, and it’s just getting worse and worse. So, finding the way to balance everything, reminding the team that, “Look, we can’t do these things. They just won’t happen. And we’ve just got to manage it somehow”. In the ANZIC office, over the last six months, we’ve lost a couple of staff for various reasons. We had people out temporarily. And that’s meant some things have just had to drop off. And, yes, there are consequences. How are we going to manage to spend all the money in the grant? That’s always bad [if you don’t spend the money]. But yeah, the reality is you can’t do everything. You’ve got to manage it. I think that’s one of the things you’ve really got to learn to accept as well, that you can’t just push yourself to breaking point. And I think a lot of us do that. I think a lot of success in many organizations comes down to the excessive generosity of the staff working there, especially scientists who love this stuff.

BMR: I can see that IODP has this very strong component of community, of personal relations, that as you can see here, they are built to large extent in the ship. So, then it’s very easy to collaborate with the people, but also – there’s passion in the work, and interest of moving the program forward… So probably you are much more involved, personally, professionally, and emotionally.

RH: Yeah. In this expedition, in some ways, I’ve been surprised that the length of the working relationship with many of the people on the expedition. But I think there’s a really good balance, and I think IODP and ICDP, the continental equivalent, do that pretty well as well: keeping a pretty good balance between keeping the continuity of these kind of things because they take so long to set up, to implement, to understand… You need that continuity. You need the person who was on JFAST, the predecessor to this [expedition] 12 years ago, and you need the people even before that. But there’s a very healthy mix of that kind of longevity, but also the fresh blood, the new ideas; and that’s really impressive to see, that there is that recognition, and getting the younger people involved as well. I think generally the IODP does that really well.

BMR: When you started as program Director of ANZIC, what kind of community or program did you find, there? Maybe you knew it already before, but probably from that position you could see some things more clearly.

RH: I think coming into ANZIC was in that sort of atmosphere of uncertainty, in terms of funding and continuity. There’s still a core of [ANZIC] people who are really passionate about maintaining it, the people who recognize the importance and the significance. The partnerships were reasonably strong with the different universities. People were involved… Although it still does happen that we have people who say, “I haven’t really heard about IODP”. So, there’s always work to do, to make sure people are aware of those opportunities. I think we’re doing that reasonably well, in ANZIC. We have other opportunities to get involved and to build awareness through our Marine Geoscience Masterclass, which we run every year, which has an undergraduate student generally from every partner we have around Australia and New Zealand. And the last couple of years we’ve invited some of our international partners’ to send people, because they’ve very generously always invited us to send people to their workshops and student training courses. So, yeah, I think it was generally like a very healthy, motivated community, but always struggling a little bit with that, “well, what’s going to happen next? How are we going to be able to keep this going?”. I guess we still have that, at the moment. That’s the biggest challenge, but everyone is right behind ensuring that that goes on, because people recognize the importance and the impact of getting those samples from the seafloor.

BMR: Do you have to convince your funding agency? I mean, I guess the funding pathways of Australia and New Zealand are different and they come together in ANZIC.

RH: Yes, obviously yes, we have to convince them.

BMR: Even after so many years of ANZIC’s existence?

RH: Yes. I think that’s a trait of government. Generally, if you submitted a proposal [for ANZIC funding], the outcome depends on the system. So, if something goes through the Australian Research Council, it’s a panel of scientists who review it. Generally, from those scientists on the review panels, we have a very strong support and recognition of the impact. And yes, the reviews are usually always, “We’ve got to keep this going because Australia’s got to stay involved. New Zealand’s got to stay involved”. The subtleties are a little bit different between Australia and New Zealand, the political drivers are a little bit different. There might be subtle differences in the science priorities. In Australia, one of the big things is mineral resources, at the moment. How do we align with that when we’re asking for funding? There are subtle challenges as well in terms of, governments can change. In Australia, we have generally a three year political cycle. So, there’s maybe a new government every three years.

So, the political cycle can be quite short; there’s no fixed term. A government can call an election after one year – generally, [the government] doesn’t change after one year; they would only do that if they had a good chance of adding a bit of extra time, I guess. So, things can be a little bit fickle, in that sense. And then, different political sides will have different priorities. At the moment, the current government in Australia recognizes that there’s issues with climate change. I sense the challenge for our community is a little bit around responding to the government saying, “yeah, yeah, we know the climate is changing, so you don’t have to keep convincing us of that. But what are we going to do about it?”

That approach of saying, “we’re doing the science, getting the samples to tell us how the past climate change informs what’s happening now”, that’s becoming slightly more challenging to use as an argument in the sense that, “yes, we’re convinced, we believe you, but what are we going to do about it?”. So, that’s the next thing.

I think there’s got to be a bit of thought around: how is our community going to contribute to that? What are we going to do about it? There’re elements of that in terms of tipping points – that’s something that people talk about a lot in climate change. How fast is it going to happen? Can we go back in the geological record and get higher resolution sampling of change, to sort of say, “it can happen really quick” or “no, it’s going to take decades”, or… I think a lot of people think it could happen really quickly. So, I think that’s maybe a little aspect, but in terms of how we’re going to fix it, is that coming down to sequestering CO2? What’s ocean drilling’s role in that? I don’t think I have the answers yet, but I think that’s something that our community is going to have to think about a little bit.

So, yeah, whenever we’re applying for funding, the approach is governed by the parameters that are set by the government of the day and what their priorities are.

BMR: ANZIC has been active for so many years in this international collaboration, and the value of that is very clear, but would you say that the continuity year by year is still uncertain, in terms of funding?

RH: Well, maybe not every year…

BMR: Well, maybe I was thinking in terms of – do you still need to put a really coherent and strong proposal each time to prove its value? Or is it because it’s the normal process in the government, but you know that most likely you’re going to obtain the support?

RH: I don’t think it’s a case where we can sit down and think, “Oh, most likely we’re going to get it”. It’s always a new proposal, each time. We’ve recently switched the funding stream we get our funding from. Previously it came from the Australian Research Council, but we were always getting a message that, “We don’t think your program fits ideally within the particular program of the Research Council”. They were suggesting that we should switch to the other one. There are peculiarities about the other one, which meant we had an attempt [a few years ago] and didn’t get it. We were then still approaching the ARC, the Australian Research Council, for funding, but saying, “Okay, well, let’s just ask for 18 months just to bridge that period until we might switch to the other one”.

So it’s always been a bit of a juggle. Since – I think my strong knowledge of the history goes back maybe to about 2015, I think when ANZIC was granted a five year grant from the Australian Research Council, and coming towards the end of that, that was starting to be the message – maybe you should try and switch to the other one. Then, there was an 18 month grant, and a two year grant. That is a real challenge: when we’re talking long-term, one and a half years is nothing. If we had someone who put in a proposal [to sail], by the time that funding is coming to an end, then even somebody who was selected in that time period to go on an expedition, by the time the expedition happens, we maybe can’t guarantee that there’s funding there.

So, like I said, we have switched to a different funding stream now. We were successful a year and a half ago, or almost two years ago, to get funding. But, again, still only for a four year period. So, till mid-2027. But that funding pool has the opportunity to land in a space where your funding becomes a little bit more certain. So, instead of project-based funding, it can be operational funding, and provided the big bucket of funds still exists, we have a better chance of maybe getting a bit more certainty in the ongoing contribution.

It’s not easy, to make the step into that, but we’re trying to position ourselves so the funding that we’ve got from this new stream – it’s referred to as the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy. That funding is channeled through an existing Australian Earth Science Infrastructure – it’s essentially a company called AuScope. And AuScope uses its funding for lab instrumentation, seismometers for measuring earthquakes around the country and in Antarctica, various other instrumentation… And now, ANZIC is fitting within that AuScope family of activities, and as well adds a means to access the subsurface. So, providing infrastructure to access the subsurface. And through that funding, we’ve also now joined the International Continental Scientific Drilling Program. Finally. New Zealand very frequently reminded us that, “We’ve been a member of 10 or 15 years. What about Australia?”, and Australia has never been a member. But yeah, now we are. So, we’ve been able to broaden that focus a little bit.

Like I said, we’re hoping to set ourselves up so that we can become more on that operational side where it’s considered that, as long as that big funding bucket exists, we’ve got more guarantee of continuity, and that will make a lot of things easier. We can give certainty to the community when we’re negotiating with the international partners. We’re not so much going to say, “Well, we can’t guarantee anything beyond the next two years”. When you’re there, trying to set up things for the next 5 or 10 years, that’s really difficult.

BMR: That was exactly what I was going to ask you next. How the position of ANZIC fits within the IODP strategy? We can talk about how it has fitted until now, and its interactions with different partners – ECORD, Japan, the US…

RH: I guess under IODP, the latest iteration of the International Ocean Discovery Program, our main connection was with the US National Science Foundation. And that’s because just like the other members in IODP – ECORD, Japan, India, China… Korea and other countries who were there at times; they all paid a membership contribution into IODP to the NSF. And so, our contribution was relatively small. Regardless of whether we have our funding or not, or whether NSF needs more money to sustain things, our contribution was always quite small, so it didn’t make a huge difference. But I think we’re a valued partner. I’d like to think we’re a valued partner and that we contribute very strongly with the science, to the science. We’ve been consistently contributing finances and, I think, always striving to potentially increase that financial contribution because we know everything gets more expensive, but that’s always in a framework of the funding available, which is always less, as well.

[interruption]

BMR: Okay, so let’s pick it up where we left it. We were talking about funding groups to the US. The funding was channeled first to US Science Support Office, I guess.

RH: Yes. I wouldn’t necessarily say we were closer to NSF, but NSF was the… the main funding contributor to IODP, in the sense of the main funding contributors for the JOIDES Resolution as the scientific drilling vessel, but we know Japan was still operating Chikyu, and Chikyu is also expensive to run. So, Japan was a major contributor, and ECORD the same, operating the Mission Specific Platforms. So, everybody was contributing. But our contribution into IODP was through NSF, and that got us the access to the JOIDES Resolution expeditions and, through some berth exchange arrangement with ECORD, we got the access to the Mission Specific Platform expeditions. I guess generally we weren’t a part of the Chikyu access. That was sort of a separate arrangement. So, the main contact was through NSF, because our funding for membership went to the NSF.

BMR: What are the challenges ahead, or the open questions? Another way to phrase the question for you as the director of the program is, in which direction would you like to move it?

RH: That’s a big question (laughs). Well, I guess as most people listening or reading will probably know, IODP has ended. And, at the moment, the future is looking a little bit more separate. I don’t really like using that word because, for us, the strongest selling point for getting the funding is, this is an international collaboration that Australia has to be part of. If we’re not part of it, if we’re not contributing our expertise into that program, we’re not giving our early career researchers the chance to go away, and get knowledge and bring it back to Australia. We’re not creating the opportunity to bring that drilling infrastructure to the Australia, New Zealand region, to actually answer questions and problems that are directly relevant to us.

So, for us, it’s the international aspect of it, which is the strongest selling point. And as we go into the future with ECORD and Japan teaming up to run IODP³, we know that’s going to happen. We know that the US is probably going to do something. It’s really sadly that it’s not looking so great for the JOIDES Resolution in terms of the future, but at the same time, in reality, the JOIDES Resolution is quite old, and it was probably getting towards the end of its days. But even just talking to some of the crew on Chikyu who sort of said, “I’ve been on Chikyu for 18 years”, to whom I was just speaking at lunch this morning – it sounds crazy; breakfast this afternoon – it’s like another home. So, people have really built a strong connection to that the vessel. And it must really, really hurt for those people, to know that that’s not going to continue. It must really, really hurt for the scientists who’ve had an involvement, who’ve been on the JOIDES Resolution five times, or spent a large part of their career on JR, that it’s coming to an end.

And, for the community as a whole, when the community really recognizes what JOIDES Resolution achieved and could achieve, and the flexibility that the JOIDES Resolution had to go to so many different places in the world and do different things, whether it was paleo-climate drilling sediments, drilling into a volcano that was melting the core liner… Incredible versatility. And now, at least for the next few years, that’s probably gone.

But, in some ways – I have to tread carefully now – I don’t think the NSF had much choice, because it costs money to operate the JOIDES Resolution, and it costs more money as time goes on. Particularly in the post-COVID world, where everything became more expensive. I think the NSF needed the commitment from the partners to continue that funding. Of course, I’m not party to a lot of the internal discussions that happened and why we’re in the situation we are now, but the situation is that, I guess, ECORD and JAMSTEC have decided they’re going to run IODP³. I’m 100% convinced they’re very open to collaboration with anybody who wants to be part of that.

Just recently, ANZIC has made a commitment to say that, yes, we’re ready to commence formal negotiations to join IODP³. We just have to go through the process of the paperwork and negotiate funding levels, and all those kinds of things, because whatever happens, if we’re going to commit to IODP³, we want to keep some funds separate to contribute to whatever else might come up. So, we know that IODP³ is going to start in a month or so, and yes, we’ll be a part of that.

 On the US side, I guess they’re still going through a bit of a transition. I’m also 100% confident that they have an intention to replace the JR, at some point. But unfortunately, that’s going to be… We know building a ship is not an easy process, not a cheap process. So, I think that’s all definitely going to happen. And, of course, now China has a new [scientific] drilling vessel in the water, as well, [Meng Xiang} and they’re talking about having an equivalent sort of program, inviting international collaboration… At a scientific level, I think there’s excitement about what that opportunity brings but, of course, the reality of the world’s geopolitics makes that difficult for some places. So, yeah, I think we have to wait and see how that side of it evolves.

But again, coming back to the point I’ve always tried to make it clear to all the international partners that for us, it’s really difficult now when we’ve got to be picking and choosing between three options, and we can’t afford to contribute to each of those – well, we can’t afford to contribute to all three of them. And we certainly can’t afford to contribute to all three of them at the level that they might hope, if we’re going to spread our funds across all three of them. So, yeah, we’re in a really difficult position about deciding what’s going to happen. And whatever happens, I think we need to set it up in a sense that, if we make a commitment in one direction, we would really like to have the flexibility that we can say, “Okay, we’re going to scale that back a little bit so that we can be part of the other opportunity as well”.

I think over the next 2 or 3 years it’s going to be really difficult. And, of course, all of that uncertainty has aligned with the time frame of two and a half years, until our funding runs out, meaning that probably in a year or so we have to start applying for the new funding. We have to find a way to sell the reason for the involvement in potentially three different programs. But I think that, regardless of whether they’re three separate things, there are still international opportunities. I’m also pretty confident that those various opportunities are going to talk to each other about how they can support each other, within the political constraints. So, I think we will be in a position we can make a case that we should continue that funding. And, like I said, make it a bit more operational as well.

So, for us, in the next 2 or 3 years, it’s really important at least that we show continuing involvement. That we’re getting benefit from the funds that the Australian government and the New Zealand government are putting into whatever programs we do take part in. It’s complicated, but being an optimist, I think that we will find a way to do that. And all the other constraints on funding, I guess you never know, right? So, if the funding falls over, we might find a way to just have a barebones operation. We might not be able to send people on expeditions, but we may have enough funds that we can at least keep a couple of people in the office to continue the engagement and try and set things up for the longer term, with the dream that everything will come together again.

BMR: In the nineties there was also a similar situation where it seemed that the program was going to divide into different programs. And with the realization that the budget would spread thin in all of them, there was again a willingness from the scientific side to re-unite again the different paths in a single, co-lead, program.

RH: If it’s separate, it’s difficult. Especially for small consortia like ANZIC. Australia and New Zealand, having that small amount of funds, how do we split it to make sure that we get the best return on what we spend. The MSP approach relies on contracting different vessels, and the vessel availability becomes subject to the market. The timing of when that might happen… So, there’s a lot of other variables that come into it, that make it more challenging as well. And, it’s not very good for us in the worst case, if ECORD can’t secure a vessel for any expedition, and we are left in the position of having nothing to show for funds that we contributed. Sure, those funds, those membership contributions could be carried into the future until a vessel can be secured, but if that future is after ANZIC’s funding ends, then we would have no means to support any participants.

BMR: This is perhaps a very basic question. You say you have to show the benefits – what are the benefits? How would you phrase it? ANZIC doesn’t have a platform or the MSP concept, so you are in a different situation to show the benefits than ECORD, Japan or the US.

RH: I guess at the broadest level, there’s generally a broad recognition in government in Australia and New Zealand that international participation in these kinds of big things is important, because of the skill building, knowledge gain, the bringing that infrastructure to our region from time to time… Just those sorts of mutual benefits of being involved internationally, being seen as an active player on the international stage. So, I guess there’s recognition of the knowledge and the standing of our scientists as well in that broader sense. But, depending on the government, there is a bit of, “When’s the vessel going to come to Australian waters?”, “When are they going to come to New Zealand waters?” I hear a little bit more about that around some of the other partners, the funding people are asking, “We’re not going to fund you unless it comes here”. I think in Australia, at the moment, we’re a little bit more… — I’m not sure I should comment on New Zealand, but I think generally in New Zealand as well – there’s a recognition that, if the vessels don’t come here, then we’re still benefiting from that involvement.

Then, on the more sort of the scientific perspective of what’s the impact, what’s the benefit?  That’s an interesting one as well, because there’s a really interesting discussion, especially in academic communities on, “What are the impacts of my science?”. And it’s not a Nature paper. A Nature paper is an output. The impact is really when you translate that science output into an outcome in terms of, we gain knowledge about some climate process. The impact is when that knowledge gets fed into a new government policy. “Okay, we listened to the science. And now we’re going to implement a policy that sort of recognizes that”. And come up with some strategy to improve it. That’s really where the impact has got to be.

I think in some ways for, some things – like for me personally – some things are easy to sell in that impact sense. Like, being on an expedition like this 405, where we’re looking at earthquakes, tsunamis… There’s an easy way to translate the science that we publish in a Nature or Science paper into outcomes that feed into communities, and impacts in the sense of outcomes that feed into the community about understanding what kind of tsunami could happen if this kind of earthquake happens? Into impacts of the economic benefits of being prepared, the societal benefits of being prepared… That’s a reasonably easy thing to talk about in a natural hazard sort of sense, earthquakes and tsunamis.

The climate one is a little bit more challenging, I think, especially in the context of what I said before about sensing a little bit that some government, some public servants, are sort of recognizing, “Yeah, yeah, we know the climate is changing. What are you going to do about it?” There, I don’t quite have an answer, in my mind at least – I put that out to the community: if you’ve got ideas, feed them back to me – What impact can we make in the sense of, what are we going to do about climate change? How are we going to mitigate [or adapt to] the impacts? Previously, when we put our last funding application in, one of the government priorities was looking at step change in understanding climate change. So, it was pretty straightforward to make the arguments under that kind of step change that they were looking to achieve. Hey, look, we’re providing Australian researchers with access to the infrastructure that gets the samples that we need to understand climate change, and the Australian government has that as part of our national science priorities. There are ones around climate, again, but shifting a bit more to, what are we going to do about it?

There are also things about building relationships, and benefiting, providing positive impact for First Nations communities in Australia. I think New Zealand has that as well. So, how are we going to integrate our Western approach to science with the knowledge that already exists with Indigenous communities? I have firsthand experience of that with Geoscience Australia, going to that community in northern Australia, seeking permission to install instruments on their country, and this community of First Nations people, when I got up and talked about the groundwater chemistry and showed maps, they said, “I know all of that. I might not know what your numbers mean, but I can tell you the water in that place is not as good as the water in that place”. That really demonstrates that there is an element of knowledge that’s built up in those First Nations communities that we shouldn’t disregard; we shouldn’t charge in and say, “hey, we know”. Let’s listen and understand what’s there. I think in a marine context, when you think of the continental shelf and that these First Nations communities still have knowledge of — their community used to live on the continental shelf before the sea level rose. So, there’s a whole lot of aspects there that we need to think about as a scientific drilling community. That’s a priority. How are we going to engage with it? How are we going to make meaningful impacts, into that sort of relationship as well?

The economy is always something that governments are interested in, as well, saying, “Okay, what is the science we do? How does that support the economy?”. We’ve used arguments in the past like, when a drilling vessel comes to port in Australia and makes a port call, there’s X million dollar of benefit to that local community. It ranges from that through to a government agency or someone funded by government, talking about critical minerals, the economic impact there is of a new technique… There is a Cooperative Research Center, as it’s called in Australia, that’s looking at new drilling technologies, and an outcome of that is the new drilling technology that is helping mining companies discover new critical mineral deposits. The impact of new resource discoveries is largely on the economy. I guess on the mineral side, which is a very important thing to the Australian government at the moment, at least, finding how IODP or scientific drilling aligns with that, especially in the marine realm, is a little bit more challenging, especially given sensitivities around things like seabed mining. But in the continental drilling side of it, with the ICDP side, there’s some clear overlaps between what ICDP might be aiming for in its geo-resources priority, and what the government is doing. It overlaps with these other research centers in Australia that are developing new technologies.

So, if there’s a project through one of these research centers that’s looking at the mineral prospectivity of a particular region, using a new drilling technology, is there an opportunity for an ICDP project? Someone just comes along, says, “okay, let’s deepen some of those holes because they’re [the mining company] only interested in the first few hundred, 500 meters, maybe. Can we go a bit deeper and answer some of those scientific questions?” Which, again, might be related to not necessarily discovering minerals, but understanding how those mineral deposits form. And I know there’s, for example, an ICDP proposal in Africa. I can’t remember the name of the country now [Malawi]. That’s a proposal not to find mineral deposits, but to understand the roots, the deeper geology, which leads to understanding the processes that [lead to formation of the mineral deposits]. And then, in terms of a benefit, if we’ve got Australian people involved in a project like that, they might be involved and they’ll bring that knowledge back to the research centers, to the mining companies in Australia who are looking for similar sort of mineral systems for identifying critical minerals. Ideally, then, even doing a similar thing in Australia. So, yeah, I guess that’s a few examples.

BMR: That’s excellent.

RH: I guess the other part of it is the educational side. We shouldn’t forget that. I think, for ANZIC, that’s a really important thing to do. We are educating school kids, university students, about the benefits of geoscience more broadly. I think, that’s another “preaching to the converted” scenario, when you tell geologists how important geology is. Many of the world’s problems, you need geoscience to understand, like the tipping points and climate change, finding mineral deposits… You need geology for all those things. But in scientific drilling, we have so many really exciting projects, like those microbes in the coal beds, the earthquakes, the [meteorite] impact that destroyed the dinosaurs… They’re the kind of things that we can utilize because they’re the big stories, the big excitement that comes out of the scientific drilling that we can use as an education tool. What kid doesn’t stop when you talk about the dinosaurs being wiped out? So, I think we’ve got an opportunity to use those big stories where you have to really capture the imagination of young kids, young students.

So, if we can use our science to captivate the future scientists, then that’s a benefit that we can hopefully achieve. We have a couple of people in our office who are really, really great in that space. Sarah Kachovich, who I think you should interview as well, has amazing ideas. We’ve got a SciCom officer right now, Janelle Kennard, who comes from a science background in Biology, and really great ideas as to how we can engage with the community and do things differently. And when you can bring out the replica core of the day the dinosaurs died, wow! The look on people’s faces. Even the chancellor of the university, when they look at that, they go, “Wow”. That’s really cool stuff.

BMR: Yes. I think for my side I don’t have any more questions. But I wanted to know if you have something else in mind that we should cover.

RH: No, I can’t think of anything else. But maybe we could end just with a question: Anybody know how to drill through chert? (laughs)

BMR: Yeah, we are still waiting for the answer. Maybe when I post this interview, we’ll have an answer (laughs).

RH: Yeah, we’ll know whether we’ve succeeded or not.

BMR: Maybe one final short question. As you mentioned, this is your first time in an IODP expedition. So, what has been the thing that has surprised you, has impressed you the most?

RH: Uhm… I don’t think there’s been any surprises, but everything I’ve heard about IODP expeditions that would impress me, I’m seeing it. So, I’m seeing the networks building. I’m seeing the science discussions – I think we’ve been pretty flat out over the last few weeks, so I think those discussions are maybe only just starting to really happen. And I think we have the challenge that we’ve got two separate windows, two different teams that didn’t have much overlap. When the reality is, when everybody gets back, there’s the normal lives that get in the way.

Seeing the cores coming out and seeing the – I talked about that science throwing unexpected things at you. You’re looking in one hole and move 20 meters and it’s completely different. And everybody goes, “Hang on. What does that mean?” I’m impressed by that, but I know that happens. I know that the networks build. The people dynamic is fascinating, as well.

So, all of that, like I said, it’s all things I’ve heard people say about IODP expeditions. And I’m seeing it. I’ve always been impressed by that, the concept that all these things can happen, and I’m impressed to see it for real.

I’m really impressed as well by the – and again, I knew that would happen — the thought process that goes into the decisions that have to be made when you’re in the moment deciding, “Are we going to try and keep going through the chert? Is it going to be realistic?” That whole process of, we’ve got this option, this option, this option — I think I heard six options. We’ve got to choose one way based on the evidence. Choose one. But you have no idea whether any of the other five would have been the better option. And, to me, that’s really impressive, to just to see that thought process happening.

I’ve been in situations where we’ve been through that thought process, as well. On some of the site surveys on the Lord Howe Rise, when there’s a problem with the seismic system, or there’s whales, “how are we going to deal with this? Do we go somewhere else or just wait?” So, all of those big decisions that have to be made, it’s really impressive how that whole process works. It’s interesting to be sitting back a little bit on the side this time, because I’m not a co-chief. Just seeing that process, from the outside a little bit, when maybe in the last few years I’ve been involved in that a little bit more… So, yeah, I think everything about it is impressive.

The technology. I knew that the technology, that this 200 meter ship, 100 meter tall derrick, all this engineering infrastructure to get these ten centimeter diameter cores… Just blows my mind. Actually, seeing it operating with the top drive going up and down as the ship moves, 20 hours to get the drill string to the seafloor, just 40 meter segment by 40 meter segment… I think that it’s just really impressive. Like I said, I knew it would be impressive, and I am impressed. (post-transcript note: A year later, I realized I was surprised when people said that as time went on, I’d get tired and just want to get off the ship. That didn’t happen at all! I didn’t want it to end…)

BMR: Thank you. That’s exactly the feeling that I have (laughs). I knew about it, but it’s just so impressive to see how everything works, and the amount of people involved, the expertise and knowledge that is behind each operation…

RH: There was a lot of people behind that. The technicians always quietly working away, and the drilling engineers… I think it’d be really great if at some point we could lay out some of the core and have a sort of core open day for all of the crew. Just to show them some of the things that are different. I think they’d all really appreciate that, because they’re all sitting there doing their thing, some of them see the core barrel come up, they maybe see something through the liner… But even just saying, “Okay, we’ll give a little science presentation for you…” I think that would be a really good idea, if we could do that some time before we finish.

BMR: That’ll be a great idea. Well, thank you very much.

RH: Yeah, you’re welcome. Thank you as well.