Drilling Projects By
Climate & Ecosystems
Sustainable Georesources
Natural Hazards
World
Geological Time
North and Central America
- Map of North and Central America
- Anadarko Basin (Oklahoma, U.S.A.)
- Bighorn Basin (U.S.A.)
- Blue Hole (Belize)
- Cape Cod (U.S.A.)
- Chesapeake Bay (U.S.A.)
- Chicxulub (Mexico)
- Chicxulub 2 (Mexico)
- Colorado (U.S.A.)
- Colorado 2 (U.S.A.)
- Cornell University (U.S.A.)
- Death Valley (U.S.A.)
- Hawai'i (U.S.A.)
- Koolau (U.S.A.)
- Lake Chalco (Mexico)
- Lake Izabal (Guatemala)
- Lake Petén Itzá (Guatemala)
- Lead (U.S.A.)
- Long Valley (U.S.A.)
- Mallik (Canada)
- Newberry (U.S.A.)
- New Jersey (U.S.A.)
- Nicaragua
- Oklahoma (U.S.A.)
- San Andreas Fault (U.S.A.)
- Sevier Basin (U.S.A.)
- Snake River (U.S.A.)
- Sudbury (Canada)
- U.S. Atlantic Margin (USA)
- Western North America (USA)
USA Margin PETM
Mid-Atlantic U.S. Coastal Plain, USA
The project targets to expanded PETM section and CIE deposits in the mid-Atlantic U.S. coastal plain. This is an area where marine sections recording the CIE (expanded onset and core/body, Marlboro clay) are rather thick, reaching > 10 m, in contrast to generally thin (< 1 m) sections elsewhere in the world. The project aims to triple-core the sections of interest at ten sites in 3 transects, building on the previous drilling in New Jersey by ODP Leg 174AX and Maryland-Virginia by the USGS, which sampled across the paleoshelf from inner neritic to deep neritic (>100 m) paleodepths. Existing cores are either depleted or contain stratigraphic gaps. Other Eocene hyperthermals and the Cretaceous/Paleogene (K/Pg) boundary at these sites will also be cored and sampled.
The objectives to be addressed are as follows:
1) utilize the high-sedimentation rates of the Marlboro Clay to evaluate the rapidity of the onset and lead-lag relationships of carbon injection, temperature rise, and sedimentation changes;
2) evaluate the relationship between extraterrestrial impact and climate;
3) study the biotic effects of the PETM on the paleoshelf, with a postulated major deoxygenation in thermocline and bottom waters, an eukaryote “black out” due to excessive temperatures, and the development of an unusual nannofossil assemblage suggestive of photic zone acidification.
