All information relevant to drilling operations and results on Leg 163X is compiled in the ODIN database developed by the Shipboard Scientific Party specifically for the cruise using FileMaker Pro operating under MacOS. ODIN is organized to conform as closely as possible to standard ODP core and sample handling procedures with provisions for including technical information about the drilling, navigation coordinates, VCDs, core photographs, thin section descriptions, chemical analyses, and paleomagnetic data. The database is fully integrated and searchable, allowing easy entry of descriptive and numerical information, as well as digital core and close-up photographs.
By more than coincidence, the acronym ODIN also refers to the chief Norse god, Odin (Fig. F11). Odin "...could remember everything that had ever happened and he knew everything that was going to happen. He had drunk from the spring of wisdom before it dried up, and at the dawn of time he had pledged an eye in exchange for all the wisdom in the world. But with his one eye he could see more than all the others. Right at the top of his castle, Valhalla, he had a lookout seat called Hlidskjalf, which was hewn into the loftiest mountain peak in Asgard; from there he could see the whole world and keep an eye on the giants. And what he couldn't see he heard about: he had two ravens, Huginn and Muginn, who were for ever flying round the world and coming back to whisper what they had heard in his ear..." (Sørensen, 1982, translated by P. Hostrup-Jessen).
This story of Odin provides an introduction to the principal elements of the ODIN database (Fig. F12). MUGINN is used to enter all drilling and navigational information for sites and holes in addition to registering the core, pieces of the core, and digital photographs. HUGINN contains all descriptive information about the core and is fully searchable. HLIDSKJALF provides a comprehensive overview of sites, holes, and recovered core and is the first entry point for most search operations. Table T6 provides an outline of the main functions of ODIN and the links between various components of the database.