The JOIDES Resolution started out life in 1978 an oil exploration drill ship Sedco/BP 471, built in Halifax, Nova Scotia at a cost of U$67 million.  In 1984 Schlumberger bought out joint-owner British Petroleum (BP), and converted the vessel to a scientific drilling vessel - the JOIDES Resolution.  

JOIDES Resolution takes her name from an ancronym, and a hat-tip to a much older vessel.  JOIDES stands for Joint Oceanographic Institutions for Deep Earth Sampling.  Resolution comes from the name of Captain James Cook’s vessel the HMS Resolution – also a converted vessel – in which Cook not only sailed the Atlantic, but explored the Pacific, and became the first European vessel to cross into Antarctic Circle. 

The full article was published in – and can be read in – The Marine Professional, a publication of the Institute of Marine Engineering, Science & Technology (IMarEST).

Image: The JOIDES Resolution. Credit Integrated Ocean Drilling Program U.S. Implementing Organization (IODP-USIO) (Public Domain)