MITAS-2009 Expedition, U.S. Beaufort Shelf and Slope—Lithostratigraphy Data Report

• Main Authors: Rose, K., Johnson, J.E., Phillips, S.C., Smith, J., Reed, A., Disenhof, C., Presley, J.
• Other Authors: United States. Office of Fossil Energy.
• Format: Report
• Language: English
• Published: National Energy Technology Laboratory (U.S.) 2012
• Subjects: 58 Geosciences; Arctic; Arctic Ocean; Beaufort Shelf; Barrow; Magnetic susceptibility; Alaska
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.2172/1061302; https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc840927/

The volume of methane released through the Arctic Ocean to the atmosphere and its potential role in the global climate cycle have increasingly become the focus of studies seeking to understand the source and origin of this methane. In 2009, an international, multi-disciplinary science party aboard the U.S. Coast Guard icebreaker Polar Sea successfully completed a trans-U.S. Beaufort Shelf expedition aimed at understanding the sources and volumes of methane across this region. Following more than a year of preliminary cruise planning and a thorough site evaluation, the Methane in the Arctic Shelf/Slope (MITAS) expedition departed from the waters off the coast of Barrow, Alaska in September 2009. The expedition was organized with an international shipboard science team consisting of 33 scientists with the breadth of expertise necessary to meet the expedition goals. NETL researchers led the expedition’s initial core processing and lithostratigraphic evaluations, which are the focus of this report. This data report is focused on the lithostratigraphic datasets from the recovered vibra cores and piston cores. Operational information about the piston and vibra cores such as date acquired, core name, total length, water depth, and geographic location is provided. Once recovered, gas samples were immediately collected from cores. In addition, each core was run through the Geotek multi-sensor core logger for magnetic susceptibility, P-wave velocity, resistivity, and gamma-density measurements (Rose et al., 2010). After the samples and measurements were completed, the cores were split into working and archive halves. Visual core descriptions of the archive half was completed for each core. Samples for shipboard smear slides, coarse fractions, and XRD analyses were collected, as well as corresponding samples for post-cruise grain size analysis from the working half of each core. Line scan images of the split core surfaces were collected post-expedition. The methods used to characterize the lithostratigraphy of the recovered cores are described.