Ocean Drilling Program Leg 172 Preliminary Report Northwest Atlantic Sediment Drifts

• Main Authors: Dr Lloyd Keigwin, Dr. Lloyd, D. Keigwin, Woods Hole, Paul J. Fox, Timothy J. G. Francis, Dr. Gary, D. Acton, James F. Allan
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: ODP/TAMU; Sohm; North Atlantic; Northwest Atlantic
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.46.5162; http://www-odp.tamu.edu/publications/prelim/172_prel/172prel.pdf

Ocean Drilling Program Leg 172 drilled 11 sites in the westernmost North Atlantic Ocean: two on the Carolina Slope (Sites 1054 and 1055), seven on the Blake-Bahama Outer Ridge (Sites 1056 to 1062), one on the Bermuda Rise (Site 1063), and one on the Sohm Abyssal Plain (Site 1064). More than 5700 m of sediments were cored that range in age from the early Pliocene to the Holocene. The westernmost North Atlantic Ocean is presently the location of an important exchange of heat, salt, and water with other ocean basins and the location of huge sediment accumulations (sediment drifts) related to deep- and intermediate-water oceanic circulation. Sediment drifts are characterized by high accumulation rates, and have recently proven to be excellent recorders of past climate variability on orbital to centennial time scales. The 11 sites cored during Leg 172 succeeded in recovering complete and expanded sequences of slope and drift sediments well suited for high-resolution paleoceanographic studie.