IODP Focus Project Update

Suzanne O’Connell (Wesleyan) and Joseph Ortiz (Kent State) led four students to the International Ocean Discovery Program core repository at Texas A&M University. They measured elemental data (XRF), magnetic susceptibility, and gamma-ray attenuation on Pliocene-age IODP cores from ODP Site 697, located in the Jane Basin off the tip of Antarctica. Post-processing is using principal component and wavelet analysis to look for changes in the depositional environment and identify an orbital signal.  Preliminary results show a strong obliquity signal. Samples were also taken for diatom identification and coarse fraction mineralogy (ice-rafted detritus).

See the abstract submitted to fall GSA meeting for more science details.