With personal feelings put aside and sociological theoretical depictions brought to the forefront, it is interesting to compare some of Jane\u27s ideas with that of both Emile Durkheim and Max Weber. The theorist who stood out right away, being exemplified through Jane\u27s positive attitude claims on a much larger, macro-level scale, was Emile Durkheim. Jane\u27s ideas about transcending human\u27s as a resource through the social fabrics of gaming into something that might solve world hunger, poverty, and global warming was nothing short of functionalism at it\u27s best. Jane\u27s platform for social structure and maintaining positive social order is the online world, and online gaming is the vehicle for change

J. B. Anderson

J. S. Wellner

S. W. Wise

Scientific Drilling

English

J.S. Wellner

J.B. Anderson

S.W. Wise

Crossref

0  Scientific Drilling, Number 1, 2005
Introduction
In 1994, a group of scientists began discussing a number 
of important scientific questions that could be addressed 
by drilling a series of short cores on the Antarctic conti-
nental shelf. The group adopted the name SHALDRIL, for 
SHALlow DRILling, and soon learned that the technology 
for high-quality sampling of the upper few hundred meters 
of the stratigraphic column was still lacking. 
After more than a decade of discussion and several years 
of detailed planning, SHALDRIL sailed from Punta Arenas, 
Chile, in March 2005. The objectives of this first SHALDRIL 
cruise are to demonstrate the feasibility of drilling from an 
icebreaker platform into the Antarctic continental shelf and 
to obtain cores from three different sedimentary sequences 
that previously have not been sampled.
The principal objective of SHALDRIL originally was 
to monitor technological developments in shallow drilling 
from conventional icebreaking research vessels. In 2000, 
the SHALDRIL steering committee learned about new 
and improved drill ing systems that can core through 
gravelly glacial deposits in water depths of several hundred 
meters and to subbottom depths of a few hundred meters 
(SHALDRIL Steering Committee, 2001). These systems 
can be operated from the icebreaking research vessel 
Nathaniel B. Palmer (Fig. 1); thus, the long-term project has 
now entered the next phase of testing this proven drilling 
technology aboard a U. S. Antarctic Program vessel. 
Technology
In 2003, a contract was signed with Seacore Ltd. (U.K.) 
to conduct the drilling operations for SHALDRIL. This 
choice was made after evaluating all of the companies 
then operating shallow coring systems, and it was based 
on the capabilit ies of heave-compensated rig systems, 
sampling tools, mobility, availability, and cost. The rig built 
for SHALDRIL is called the R-50 (Fig. 2) and is similar to, 
but slightly smaller than, the rig used recently on IODP 
Expedition 302 in the Arctic (ACEX), also built by Seacore. 
The rig is completely modular and can be rapidly mobilized 
as container freight. The rig has the capacity to take 100 
m of core in up to 1000  m of water and longer cores in 
shallower water. The SHALDRIL rig has a 3 -m heave 
compensator that will allow drilling to continue in any type 
of seas in which people can realistically work, and it will 
be mounted over a moonpool in the starboard deck of the 
Palmer (Fig.  3). The position of the rig close to midship will 
help minimize heave as compared to drilling over the stern. 
The moonpool will protect the drillstring from stray bits of 
floating ice and will ensure that ice does not accumulate in 
the moonpool during drilling.
The Inaugural SHALDRIL Expedition 
to the Weddell Sea, Antarctica
by Julia S. Wellner, John B. Anderson, 
and Sherwood W. Wise
Reports from Related Programs
Figure 1. The Nathaniel B. 
Palmer in ice.
doi:10.0/iodp.sd.1.0.00
Scientific Drilling, Number 1, 2005  1
T he process of plann ing to 
install the R-50 rig onto the Palmer 
brought with it many unexpected 
problems. The major hurdle was 
that the rig adds so much mass 
at heights above deck that the 
vessel would not meet damage-
stability criteria defined by the U.S. 
Coast Guard. A fter analyses by 
several naval architects and tests 
performed on the ship, additional 
ballast was installed to allow the 
R-50 rig to be safely mounted on 
board.
The sampling tools for SHALDRIL are being provided by 
the British Geological Survey (BGS) through a subcontract 
to Seacore. Most of the tools that will be used are part of the 
older BGS system, not the new tools used as part of ACEX. 
Piggyback coring hardware may be used in harder litho-
logies, although it is not the preferred technology for this 
program because of the time required to pull out of a hole 
and the likely presence of icebergs in the area. The other 
sampling tool available for SHALDRIL is a Shelby-tube 
system especially modified for this cruise to accept liners 
and allow higher quality sampling of very soft materials.
The Palmer was not designed with drill ing in mind 
and had to have its positioning system upgraded to make 
open-water drilling feasible. These upgrades have included 
the lease of a differential Global Positioning System (GPS) 
from Fugro-McClelland, the purchase of a single-seafloor-
beacon relative positioning system, and new software for 
ship handling. The vessel now meets dynamic positioning 
(DP) system Class 0 criteria. The system has been tested, 
at least in part, but its full functionality will be used for the 
first time during SHALDRIL. The SHALDRIL strategy of 
taking a series of relatively short drill cores (~100 m each) 
is based in part on the limits of ship handling, as well as on 
the unavoidable fact that icebergs may limit time at any one 
station.
The 31 March 2005 start date is far later in the austral 
summer season than ideal, but resulted in part f rom 
technical obstacles such as the need to modify the ship 
structurally, as well as the general demands for ship time 
from many different parties. Years ago, the SHALDRIL 
group discussed planning the project for the austral winter 
or close to it, and using fast ice to stabilize the vessel. 
Knowledge gained from other high-latitude drilling opera-
tions and from DP specialists led the program away from 
this option in favor of open-water drilling operations. Fast 
ice could stabilize the ship and might still be used in some 
cases, but relying on the right ice conditions (truly fast ice 
without any movement over many days, yet still thin enough 
to allow entry and safe exit) is riskier than relying on open 
water.
Scientific Objectives
The area best suited for this phase of the program is the 
James Ross Basin, located in the northwestern Weddell 
Sea region, offshore of Seymour Island (Fig. 4). This is the 
area initially identified by the SHALDRIL group as having 
shallow drilling targets of great scientific value, existing 
Reports from Related Programs
Figure 2. The R-50 rig assembled in the Seacore yard in Cornwall.
Figure 3. Schematic showing a drill rig placed over the moonpool on the Nathaniel B. Palmer.
  Scientific Drilling, Number 1, 2005
Reports from Related Programs
site-survey data, closest proximity to ports of departure and 
return, and proximity to auxiliary sites of scientific value.
The principal objective of this initial drilling leg is to 
test the drilling system using the Nathaniel B. Palmer, but 
the acquired core will have high scientific value. The first 
hole will be drilled into the Vega Drift (Fig. 4), an expanded 
section of Holocene deposits. This site was selected as the 
first to be drilled because it lies in the deepest and most 
protected water and, hence, is logistically the most feasible 
for testing the new drilling system. The Vega Drift site is 
the closest to shore and the most protected from inclement 
weather that typically moves eastward across the Antarctic 
Peninsula before reaching the drilling area. The lithology at 
this site, however, may be more difficult to sample with the 
standard suite of tools. Relatively soft, diatomaceous muds 
and occasional gravelly dropstones are expected throughout 
the total estimated coring depth of 100 m. The modified 
Shelby-tube sampler was designed for this site to obtain 
the high-quality core needed to construct a detailed record 
of high-frequency climate change that can be compared 
to those from elsewhere in the region, such as the Palmer 
Deep on the western margin of the Antarctic Peninsula 
(Domack et al., 2001).
The second drilling site targets Tertiary strata that 
should record climate change and the associated faunal and 
floral changes as the cryosphere evolved in the Antarctic 
Peninsula region. This site is intended to sample the acous-
tically layered strata that occur immediately downdip of 
Seymour Island (Fig. 4). These strata lie below a major 
unconformity predicted to mark the boundary between 
preglacial sediments and overly ing strata that show 
abundant evidence of glacial inf luence. Seismic stratig-
raphy and correlative strata exposed onshore suggest that 
this sequence should consist of upper Eocene through 
Oligocene strata. The onshore strata are extremely fossil-
i ferous (Zinsmeister et al., 1989), and the more distal 
offshore strata should provide greater details about the 
faunal and f loral changes that occurred as the Antarctic 
ice sheet grew larger, closing the last ice-free refugia at 
the northern tip of the Antarctic continent. Paleontological 
analyses of the uppermost part of this section will provide 
age constraints on the onset of glaciation. The sites planned 
for SHALDRIL’s second season lie further updip towards 
Seymour Island (Fig. 4). They will sample the overlying 
glacially influenced section and will further constrain the 
timing of the expansion of the ice sheet. To obtain the best 
possible paleontologic record from each of these Neogene 
targets, SHALDRIL aims to sample the glacial-marine 
units, as identified by seismic facies, rather than the uncon-
formities themselves.
The third hole to be drilled in 2005 targets a Pleistocene 
grounding-zone wedge and its record of ice flow during the 
last glacial maximum. We currently lack data for studying 
the processes by which sediments deform under ice sheets. 
It is extremely difficult to obtain core samples of modern till 
because of the extreme thickness of ice moving over that 
till; however, the previously ice-covered Antarctic conti-
Figure 4. Map of the James 
Ross Bas in area showing 
planned drilling sites for 2005 
and those proposed for season 
two.
Scientific Drilling, Number 1, 2005  
Expedition Update
The first SHALDRIL cruise ended on 23 April 2005. 
Due to unexpected weather conditions, the first drilling 
site was moved to Maxwell Bay in the South Shetland 
Islands. A Holocene section of 108 m of core was recov-
ered there, which will allow insights into the climate 
changes that have occurred at the tip of the Antarctic 
region. Due to the cruise being well past the optimal 
season, storms and ice were encountered. Weather 
conditions as well as some equipment bugs prevented 
recovery and sampling of the older sections this year. 
However, experience gained during this cruise will 
prove to be valuable planning for the next expedition in 
2006. Readers interested in the full cruise report, may 
request it by e-mail to Julia Smith Wellner ( jksmith@
rice.edu).
Reports from Related Programs
nental shelf provides an ideal place to obtain such samples. 
The succession within the upstream portion of a wedge 
should contain changes in ice–bed interaction, from the 
initiation of bed deformation and streaming to the retreat 
of the ice stream. A spectacular grounding-zone wedge 
from the last glacial maximum occurs near the seafloor in 
close proximity to the other drilling sites (Fig. 4). Coring 
glacial diamictons is notoriously difficult, but the sampling 
apparatus that we are bringing for SHALDRIL should be 
able to recover the first high-quality, long core samples of a 
grounding-zone wedge deposit.
Ice conditions might not allow drilling at any of these 
sites, but the entire continental shelf around the Antarctic 
Peninsula is being considered for alternate sites. Seismic 
data can be collected during the drilling cruise if needed for 
selecting alternate sites.
Future Plans
Over the last few years, the SHALDRIL group has 
encountered more difficulties than ever imagined in trying 
to bring together the technologies of an icebreaker and 
a shallow coring system. We have had to improvise and 
learn as we go; however, we believe that we have overcome 
as much as possible and can l ive with the remaining 
difficulties.
SH A LDR IL wil l complete its f irst leg on 23 Apr i l 
2005. Assuming that we succeed at bringing back core, a 
workshop will be held at the Antarctic Research Facility in 
Tallahassee, Florida (U.S.A.) in August 2005, to display the 
cores to the scientific community and invite proposals for 
studying them. Either way, we expect to sail again soon on 
SHALDRIL II to complete the drilling offshore James Ross 
Island.
For more information, including daily postings from the 
cruise, please see http://shaldril.rice.edu/.
Acknowledgements
Other sc ient ist s cur rent ly involved in th is f i rst 
SHALDRIL cruise include S. Bohaty, P. Manley, F. Weaver, 
and J. Zachos. We thank the dedicated staff at Raytheon 
Polar Services Company for helping to make SHALDRIL 
possible. We are supported by the U.S. National Science 
Foundation Office of Polar Programs.
References
Domack, E., Leventer, A., Dunbar, R., Taylor, F., Brachfeld, 
S., Sjunneskog, C., and ODP Leg 178 Science 
Party, 2001. Chronology of the Palmer Deep site, 
Antarctic Peninsula: a Holocene paleoenviron-
mental reference for the circum-Antarctic. The 
Holocene, 11:1–9.
SHALDRIL Steering Committee, 2001. SHALDRIL: A 
Shallow Drilling System to Investigate Antarctica’s 
Climate History: Tallahassee (AMGRF, FSU).
Zinsmeister, W.J., Feldman, R.M., Woodburne, M.V., and 
Elliot, D.H., 1989. Lower Cretaceous/early Tertiary 
t ransit ion on Seymour Island, A ntarct ica . J. 
Paleontol., 63:731–738.
Authors
J. S. Wellner, Department of Earth Science, Rice Univer-
sity MS-126, 6100 Main Street Houston, TX 77005, U.S.A., 
e-mail: jksmith@rice.edu
J. B. Anderson, Department of Earth Science, Rice Univer-
sity MS-126, 6100 Main Street Houston, TX 77005, U.S.A., 
S. W. Wise, Department of Geological Sciences, 108 Car-
raway Building, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL 
32306-4100, U.S.A.
Figure Credits
Fig. 1 photograph from http://www.polar.org/science/
marine/images/nbp_images/ship_cape_royds.jpg.
Fig. 2 Photo by A. Lowe.
All other figures courtesy of SHALDRIL.
Related Weblink
http://shaldril.rice.edu/


The Inaugural SHALDRIL Expedition to the Weddell Sea, Antarctica

Introduction  In 1994, a group of scientists began discussing a number of important scientific questions that could be addressed by drilling a series of short cores on the Antarctic continental shelf. The group adopted the name SHALDRIL, for SHALlow DRILling, and soon learned that the technology for high-quality sampling of the upper few hundred metersof the stratigraphic column was still lacking.After more than a decade of discussion and several years of detailed planning, SHALDRIL sailed from Punta Arenas, Chile, in March 2005. The objectives of this first SHALDRIL cruise are to demonstrate the feasibility of drilling from an icebreaker platform into the Antarctic continental shelf and to obtain cores from three different sedimentary sequences that previously have not been sampled.The principal objective of SHALDRIL originally was to monitor technological developments in shallow drilling from conventional icebreaking research vessels. In 2000, the SHALDRIL steering committee learned about new and improved drilling systems that can core through gravelly glacial deposits in water depths of several hundred meters and to subbottom depths of a few hundred meters(SHALDRIL Steering Committee, 2001). These systems can be operated from the icebreaking research vessel Nathaniel B. Palmer (Fig. 1); thus, the long-term project has now entered the next phase of testing this proven drilling technology aboard a U. S. Antarctic Program vessel

S. W. Wise,

Directory of Open Access Journals

Johnson, Ryan B.

UNH Scholars' Repository

PerspectivesSpring 2010 Article 125-1-2010Online Gaming Can Make a Better World: JaneMcGonigalRyan B. JohnsonUniversity of New Hampshire, DurhamFollow this and additional works at: https://scholars.unh.edu/perspectivesThis Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Student Journals and Publications at University of New Hampshire Scholars' Repository.It has been accepted for inclusion in Perspectives by an authorized editor of University of New Hampshire Scholars' Repository. For more information,please contact nicole.hentz@unh.edu.Recommended CitationJohnson, Ryan B. (2010) "Online Gaming Can Make a Better World: Jane McGonigal," Perspectives: Vol. 2 : Iss. 1 , Article 12.Available at: https://scholars.unh.edu/perspectives/vol2/iss1/12Ryan B Johnson  Professor Esala  Thursday, March 25th, 2010   Online Gaming Can Make a Better World: Jane McGonigal      After watching Jane McGonigal speak in this TED video I couldn't help but smile inside. I have been a fairly avid online gamer for quite some time now, and it was refreshing to see someone shed positive light on the subject. Most gamers including myself were always confused as to why these games were so enticing and addicting in most cases, but shunned upon by most of our peers. It always left me feeling somewhat confused and depressed about the whole situation, and now with Jane's highly intelligent commentaries about the positive nature of gaming and objective studies to back it up, I can again confidently say that I am an online game enthusiast.           With personal feelings put aside and sociological theoretical depictions brought to the forefront, it is interesting to compare some of Jane's ideas with that of both Emile Durkheim and Max Weber. The theorist who stood out right away, being exemplified through Jane's positive attitude claims on a much larger, macro-level scale, was Emile Durkheim. Jane's ideas about transcending human's as a resource through the social fabrics of gaming into something that might solve world hunger, poverty, and global warming was nothing short of functionalism at it's best. Jane's platform for social structure and maintaining positive social order is the online world, and online gaming is the vehicle for change.           Jane sees how societies within the online gaming communities are working more collaboratively and more productively than societies in the real world; and is looking to explain through her research why this phenomena is occurring, as well as how we can apply this reoccurring theme to the real world. She is clearly interested with her research in what Durkheim would describe as the Sui Generis, or the "whole being greater than the sum of the parts". The foundation of the gaming world thus far has been creating more enticing, more exciting experiences, in which players are willing to collaborate and communicate effectively to achieve. She describes these "epic win" scenarios in online gaming worlds that modern real world experiences just can not seem to achieve.           In Durkheim's Sui Generis, the object of the greater good was the sum of the parts, and these parts require social cohesion involving greater cooperation between individuals in society to achieve a strong social order. In video games, the social order comes from the experience players have to achieve the "epic win" or ultimate goal, which involves teamwork, mass collaboration, and cooperation. With a strong structural system in-place for online gamers, or the gaming platform, this cooperation comes extremely effortlessly, almost flawlessly and without fail. Also, when the cooperation between players doesn't occur, its easy to leave the current situation, pick yourself up from failure and move on to the next scenario. Online players trust that there are plenty of other great players who share similar interests or missions to theirs. They 1Johnson: Online Gaming Can Make a Better World: Jane McGonigalPublished by University of New Hampshire Scholars' Repository, 2010know from the start that their "epic win", or ultimate goal in the end of each scenario, is well worth the immense cooperation it takes to achieve that win. What is made a very easy task of moving on after failure online is seemingly incredibly hard to transcend into the real world.          In the gaming world players all know exactly what their roles are and they all know exactly what missions to accomplish. In the real world, however, it is easy for people to loose sight of what exactly their goals are, or what missions they have to accomplish. Its too easy for people to get off track from tasks they begin because they loose sight of the rewards in the end. Maybe they start with great intentions for a new plan of action, but change their minds because there are just so many ideas of what is right and what is wrong in our world. This is one of the many reasons why people might lack the same social morality and collective conscience that online video game environments seem to achieve so easily. I guess It would be different if everyone was given an "epic quest" book at birth and was told what to do. How can sociologists find true social cohesion and a strong collective conscience without people loosing their "freedom" to choose? This is a question I will leave unanswered.         It was interesting when Jane stated that "whenever you show up in one of these online games, there are lots and lots of different characters that are willing to trust you with a world-saving mission" which i also alluded to earlier. The collective conscience of the video game world is so strong because online players all have very similar goals, physically and mentally, and uphold similar values within those goals. These goals and missions that players are willing to collaborate and cooperate together within, simply because they share the same goals and missions, creates a strong social cohesion and a unified social morality. This morality, which is the social ties among these online players binding them together to control their selfishness, is created almost effortlessly online, and requires very little maintenance. It is built into gaming platforms that players work together. As 'Durkheimian' sociologists, we would see this unification of players as being a very positive outcome in creating and maintaining social order, and fuel for the greater good of society.           A little more expansion on the topic and moving onto Weber, I did find a few interesting links. One that stands out is when Jane stated her very first sociological fact in that, as a world, "we spend 3 billion hours a week playing online games". This immediately spoke to the Protestant Work Ethic in which Weber outlines as the value of hard and honest work. Online players spend a lot of time playing these games, and they have to work at devoting that much time, even though it might not feel like work. Jane also says "There's no unemployment in World of Warcraft, there's no sitting around wringing your hands, there's always something specific and important to be done". This type of ideology absolutely speaks to the Protestant Work Ethic once again, and is a great example of how much work goes into the thought-processing within gaming worlds.          One last huge theoretical depiction of Weber's that applies beautifully to almost any online game scenario is the idea of rational action, and more specifically value and instrumental-rational action. Almost 100% of the decisions that are made within an online environment will be value-based. That is, they will be made by players to further the conquest of the world or to protect the world in which they live. On an individual level, the players value and aspire to a higher level, gain or achieve experience points, or earn more social renown. These decisions could also be 2Perspectives, Vol. 2 [2010], Iss. 1, Art. 12https://scholars.unh.edu/perspectives/vol2/iss1/12instrumental-based, where the players will sometimes weigh the cost-benefit analysis between choosing to complete a specific task or abandon that task and move onto the next. Sometimes the next quest will return greater rewards, and therefore the player will focus more time and energy on that quest versus another. These types of rational decisions are consistently made across the online gaming community, and always return rewards without fail. This seems to always be the case online, but rarely the consistent case in the real world. Perhaps human rational action at one point no longer returned rewards or granted us a positive experience, and therefore people were left confused and began to question themselves and their motives, and out of this confusion non-rational action was born.           We have just now begun, thanks to Jane McGonigal, to value the experiences that online gamers are having, and with a critical eye we can begin to see different paradoxes between these online communities and our real-world societies. Her enthusiasm and inspiration on the subject certainly was refreshing, enticing, and exciting to me, and I am sure it was refreshing for many other sociologists. The fact that she has beautifully constructed empirical research to back up her arguments is very impressive. In the near future, with more insightful research and inspiration, we can hopefully bridge the gap between these paradoxes, and begin to create parallels among these online and real world communities.   3Johnson: Online Gaming Can Make a Better World: Jane McGonigalPublished by University of New Hampshire Scholars' Repository, 2010