IODP Expedition 302, Arctic Coring Expedition (ACEX): A First Look at the Cenozoic Paleoceanography of the Central Arctic Ocean

• Published in: Scientific Drilling
• Main Authors: the IODP Expedition 302 Scientists, David McInroy, Kathryn Moran, Jan Backman
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Copernicus Publications 2005
• Subjects: IODP Expedition 302; Geology; QE1-996.5; Arctic; Arctic Ocean; Canada; Alpha Ridge; alpha ridge; canada basin; Central Arctic
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.2204/iodp.sd.1.02.2005; https://doaj.org/article/8204d7c02d864ebfa19fd238f9355d4f

Introduction The behavior and inf luence of the A rct ic Oceanthroughout the course of the global Cenozoic climateevolution have been virtually unknown. Only the uppermostfew meters of the Arctic’s sediment record, representingHolocene and late Pleistocene times, have been retrievedfrom ridges through a limited number of short piston,gravity, and box cores. Even less of the thick sedimentsequences, ~6 km in the Canada Basin and ~3 km in theNansen Basin(Grantz et al., 1990; Jokat et al., 1995), restingon the Arctic Ocean’s abyssal plains, have been cored.Prior to the Arctic Coring Expedition (ACEX), informationon Neogene or Paleogene conditions in the central Arcticwas limited to a 1.6-m interval in a 3.6-m-long T-3 gravitycore raised from the Alpha Ridge (Clark, 1974), providingthe sole evidence for marine conditions no older than themiddle Eocene in the central Arctic (Bukry, 1984).