HR: 09:45h
AN: U31D-08    [Abstracts]
TI: 100 Million Years of Earth Observations from Scientific Ocean Drilling
AU: * Bohlen, S
EM: sbohlen@joiscience.org
AF: Consortium for Ocean Leadership, JOI Division, 1201 New York Ave., Suite 400, Washington, DC 20005, United States
AU: O'Riordan, C A
EM: coriordan@joiscience.org
AF: Consortium for Ocean Leadership, JOI Division, 1201 New York Ave., Suite 400, Washington, DC 20005, United States
AU: Schuffert, J D
EM: jschuffert@joiscience.org
AF: Consortium for Ocean Leadership, JOI Division, 1201 New York Ave., Suite 400, Washington, DC 20005, United States
AB: Much of what we know about the last 100 million years of Earth history derives from scientific ocean drilling. On hundreds of expeditions conducted since 1964, in deep and shallow water and from the tropics to the poles, scientists have collected and analyzed thousands of kilometers of sediment and rock cores from below the seafloor and measured a wide variety of physical and chemical properties in the corresponding boreholes. The enormous body of results has greatly improved our knowledge of Earth's climate history, continental drift, earthquake genesis, and many other geological phenomena. For example, scientific ocean drilling has confirmed the basic tenet of plate tectonics and the three-layer model of oceanic crust that explains the primary source of marine magnetic anomalies. Scientists also have documented and quantified the occurrences of extreme climates and rapid climate change over the last 100 million years and established the hypothesis that Himalayan uplift enhanced global cooling. Upcoming expeditions aim to recover records of past time periods with different climatic boundary conditions to help answer questions about the mechanisms that produce climate oscillations and their global extent. Other expeditions will examine the microbial communities that compose the deep biosphere. Scientists also will investigate fault mechanics and seismogenesis along subduction megathrusts through direct sampling, in situ measurements, and long-term monitoring as part of the Nankai Trough Seismogenic Zone Experiment (NanTroSEIZE). The observations from these new expeditions and complex drilling projects of the ten-year Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP) will significantly enhance our understanding of the Earth system history and lead to the next set of important discoveries about our planet.
DE: 0429 Climate dynamics (1620)
DE: 0473 Paleoclimatology and paleoceanography (3344, 4900)
DE: 1021 Composition of the oceanic crust
DE: 1744 Tectonophysics
SC: Union [U]
MN: 2007 Fall Meeting