IODP Expeditions 303 and 306 Monitor Miocene- Quaternary Climate in the North Atlantic

Abstract

Introduction The IODP Expeditions 303 and 306 drilling sites were chosen for two reasons: (1) to capture Miocene-Quaternary millennial-scale climate variability in sensitive regions at the mouth of the Labrador Sea and in the North Atlantic icerafted debris (IRD) belt (Ruddiman et al., 1977), and (2) to provide the sedimentary and paleomagnetic attributes, including adequate sedimentation rates, for constructinghigh-resolution isotopic and magnetic stratigraphies.High accumulation rates, reaching 20 cm ky-1, permit the study of millennial-scale variations in climate and in the Earth's magnetic fi eld over the past several million years, when the amplitude and frequency of climate variability changed substantially. Shipboard logging and scanning data (magnetic susceptibility and remanence, density, natural gamma radiation, digital images and color refl ectance) and post-expedition x-ray fl uorescence (XRF) scanning datahave revealed that the sediment cores recovered on Expeditions 303 and 306 contain detailed histories of millennial-scale climate and geomagnetic fi eld variability throughout the late Miocene to Quaternary epochs. The climate proxies will be integrated with paleomagnetic data to place the records of millennial-scale climate change into a high resolution stratigraphy based on oxygen isotope andrelative paleomagnetic intensity (RPI). The paleomagnetic record of polarity reversals, excursions and RPI in these cores is central to the construction of the stratigraphic template and will provide detailed documentation of geomagnetic fi eld behavior.

Keywords

• IODP Expeditoin 303