International continental scientific drilling

The National Science Foundation Division of Earth Sciences awarded one million dollars to Helmholtz-Zentrum Potsdam—Deutsches Geoforschungszentrum GFZ on February 1, 2026, under the Geosciences program (CFDA 47.050) to support the International Continental Scientific Drilling Program (ICDP). The award funds U.S. scientists' participation in multinational continental scientific drilling projects worldwide, providing access to the Earth's subsurface to test hypotheses relating to fundamental Earth processes including natural hazards, natural resource development, and environmental science. The ICDP coordinates international collaboration and funding for large-scale drilling efforts that individual countries cannot undertake alone, offering comprehensive support across all project phases from planning and logistics through operations, sample collection, analysis, and archival. The program also delivers hands-on STEM workforce training. Work is performed in Germany with a period of performance through January 31, 2031. The assistance type is a Project Grant.

Abstract

The international continental scientific drilling program (ICDP) provides U.S. Scientists with direct access to the earth?S subsurface to test myriad hypotheses relating to earth processes. The ICDP supports drilling projects around the world on land and in lakes and provides unique and essential services for scientific drilling projects. These projects provide benefit to society by improving our ability to protect against natural hazards, develop ways to harness natural resources and inform US about the environment. They also provide hands-on stem workforce training. Such projects are often too large for one country to undertake alone, and ICDP coordinates international collaboration and funding needed for these larger projects to be successful. The ICDP is a global partnership that has been supporting and coordinating multinational efforts in continental scientific drilling since 1996. ICDP?S comprehensive support to U.S. Scientists includes all facets of scientific drilling projects, from planning and logistics to operations, sample collection, analyses, and archival. The U.S. Is one of three founding members of the ICDP and has hosted several of its most prominent scientific drilling projects, including drilling into the SAN andreas fault to core an active fault zone, charting the geologic history of the yellowstone hotspot track, and sampling the chesapeake BAY crater to understand how bolide impacts shape planetary geology. To date, over 100 ICDP sponsored workshops have been funded, resulting in 82 successfully executed drilling projects. Upcoming projects being actively developed focus on characterizing a range of geothermal reservoirs, understanding the deformation of an active volcano, and studying both ancient and more recently active fault systems at different scales. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.- subawards are not planned for this award.