Deep Sea Drilling Project (DSDP)

The Deep Sea Drilling Project (DSDP) was the first program of scientific ocean drilling, running from 1968 to 1983 aboard the drillship Glomar Challenger. Over 96 legs it cored 624 sites and recovered more than 97,000 meters of section, confirming seafloor spreading by dating the basement to be progressively older away from the mid-ocean ridges and validating plate tectonics. DSDP was succeeded by the Ocean Drilling Program in 1985 with the JOIDES Resolution, then by the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program in 2003 and the International Ocean Discovery Program in 2013. Its cores remain in active repositories.