ALBERT

Description: Global climate underwent a major reorganization when the Antarctic ice sheet expanded ~14 million years ago (Ma) ( 1 ). This event affected global atmospheric circulation, including the strength and position of the westerlies and the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ), and, therefore, precipitation patterns ( 2 – 5 ). We present new shallow-marine sediment records from the continental shelf of Australia (International Ocean Discovery Program Sites U1459 and U1464) providing the first empirical evidence linking high-latitude cooling around Antarctica to climate change in the (sub)tropics during the Miocene. We show that Western Australia was arid during most of the Middle Miocene. Southwest Australia became wetter during the Late Miocene, creating a climate gradient with the arid interior, whereas northwest Australia remained arid throughout. Precipitation and river runoff in southwest Australia gradually increased from 12 to 8 Ma, which we relate to a northward migration or intensification of the westerlies possibly due to increased sea ice in the Southern Ocean ( 5 ). Abrupt aridification indicates that the westerlies shifted back to a position south of Australia after 8 Ma. Our midlatitude Southern Hemisphere data are consistent with the inference that expansion of sea ice around Antarctica resulted in a northward movement of the westerlies. In turn, this may have pushed tropical atmospheric circulation and the ITCZ northward, shifting the main precipitation belt over large parts of Southeast Asia ( 4 ).

Description: The early Miocene was a period of major continental margin progradation in the Gulf of Mexico Basin that accompanied prominent tectonic and climatic changes in North America. However, sediment pathways from continental upland sources to deep basinal sinks remain poorly constrained. This study presents 2192 new detrital zircon U-Pb analyses from 19 Lower Miocene samples spanning the entire northern Gulf of Mexico margin to elucidate early Miocene sediment provenance and paleodrainage systems. The U-Pb age patterns indicate that the Great Plains, southern Rocky Mountains, and mid-Cenozoic volcanic field were the major source terranes for the western-central Gulf of Mexico coast, whereas the Appalachian foreland basin and Appalachian Mountains mainly contributed sediment to the eastern Gulf of Mexico coast. Local source terranes included the Llano uplift and Edwards Plateau in central Texas and the Ouachita Mountains and foreland basin in Oklahoma and Arkansas. A comparison to previous detrital zircon studies around the Gulf of Mexico indicates that sediment recycling was important during the early Miocene. Sediment associated with major paleorivers, including the Rio Bravo, Rio Grande, Houston-Brazos, Red, Mississippi, Tombigbee, and Apalachicola Rivers, can be differentiated using the detrital zircon U-Pb analyses. These data help to better define the early Miocene source-to-sink system in the northern Gulf of Mexico, by relating the basin fill to hinterland tectonic and geological evolution. In comparison to the Paleocene–Eocene Wilcox drainage system, the early Miocene drainage system of the northern Gulf of Mexico was smaller and received less input from western Mexico arc terranes and Archean basement in Wyoming. This drainage area reduction, related to regional thermal uplift and Basin and Range–Rio Grande rifting, likely explains the reduced sediment volume of the Lower Miocene strata in the Gulf of Mexico relative to the Paleocene–Eocene Wilcox Group.

Description: No abstract available. doi:10.2204/iodp.sd.12.01.2011

Description: No abstract available. doi:10.2204/iodp.sd.6.02.2008

Description: Deep-sea sedimentary deposits are important archives of the geologic past that preserve the records of past environmental changes in earth’s ocean. The detailed analysis of deep-sea sedimentary archives, in particular of contourite drifts, can help elucidate past changes in ocean circulation and the stratigraphic evolution of continental margins. However, the bathymetric profile of an oceanic basin can shape and modify the architecture of contourite drifts via the interaction between down-slope and along-slope processes. The identification of local bathymetric influence on depositional architectures is therefore important to help decipher local versus regional influences on deep-sea sedimentary signatures. Seismic data from Mentelle Basin in the southeast Indian Ocean integrated with deep-sea core data reveal a calcareous-siliciclastic mixed contourite-turbidite system developed during the late Cenozoic, starting in the middle Miocene. Current winnowing led to the formation of regional hiatuses, ferromanganese crusts, and siliciclastic lag deposits. The main locus of sediment deposition occurred on the shallower parts of the basin, whereas sediment preservation remained low in the deeper areas. Seismic analysis shows that inherited topography influenced the architecture of contourite deposits within the basin, with elongate-mounded and sheeted drifts forming preferentially at shallower depths on the continental slope and the Naturaliste Plateau, while channel incision occurred in the deepest parts of the basin. These results suggest that the intensification of current transport occurred preferentially within the deeper and spatially constrained parts of the basin, whereas current deflection around the slope and plateau enhanced drift deposition and preservation at shallower depths. Therefore, the basin topography at the time of deposition controlled the distribution of deep-sea deposits and drift morphologies within the mixed contourite-turbidite system in the Mentelle Basin.

Description: Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP) Expedition 317 was devoted to understanding the relative importance of global sea level (eustasy) versus local tectonic and sedimentary processes in controlling continental margin sedimentary cycles. The expedition recovered sediments from the Eocene to recent period, with a particular focus on the sequence stratigraphy of the late Miocene to recent, when global sea level change was dominated by glacioeustasy. Drilling in the Canterbury Basin, on the eastern margin of the South Island of New Zealand, takes advantage of high rates of Neogene sediment supply, which preserves a high-frequency (0.1–0.5 m.y.) record of depositional cyclicity. The Canterbury Basin provides an opportunity to study the complex interactions between processes responsible for the preserved stratigraphic record of sequences because of the proximity of an uplifting mountain chain, the Southern Alps, and strong ocean currents. Currents have locally built large, elongate sediment drifts within the prograding Neogene section. Expedition 317 did not drill into one of these elongate drifts, but currents are inferred to have strongly influenced deposition across the basin, including in locations lacking prominent mounded drifts. Upper Miocene to recent sedimentary sequences were cored in a transect of three sites on the continental shelf (landward to basinward, Sites U1353, U1354, and U1351) and one on the continental slope (Site U1352). The transect provides a stratigraphic record of depositional cycles across the shallow-water environment most directly affected by relative sea level change. Lithologic boundaries, provisionally correlative with seismic sequence boundaries, have been identified in cores from each site and provide insights into the origins of seismically resolvable sequences. This record will be used to estimate the timing and amplitude of global sea level change and to document the sedimentary processes that operate during sequence formation. Sites U1353 and U1354 provide significant, double-cored, high-recovery sections through the Holocene and late Quaternary for high-resolution study of recent glacial cycles in a continental shelf setting. Continental slope Site U1352 represents a complete section from modern slope terrigenous sediment to hard Eocene limestone, with all the associated lithologic, biostratigraphic, physical, geochemical, and microbiological transitions. The site also provides a record of ocean circulation and fronts during the last ~35 m.y. The early Oligocene (~30 Ma) Marshall Paraconformity was the deepest drilling target of Expedition 317 and is hypothesized to represent intensified current erosion or nondeposition associated with the initiation of thermohaline circulation following the separation of Australian and Antarctica. Expedition 317 set a number of scientific ocean drilling records: (1) deepest hole drilled in a single expedition and second deepest hole in the history of scientific ocean drilling (Hole U1352C, 1927 m); (2) deepest hole and second deepest hole drilled by the R/V JOIDES Resolution on a continental shelf (Hole U1351B, 1030 m; Hole U1353B, 614 m); (3) shallowest water depth for a site drilled by the JOIDES Resolution for scientific purposes (Site U1353, 84.7 m water depth); and (4) deepest sample taken by scientific ocean drilling for microbiological studies (1925 m, Site U1352). Expedition 317 supplements previous drilling of sedimentary sequences for sequence stratigraphic and sea level objectives, particularly drilling on the New Jersey margin (Ocean Drilling Program [ODP] Legs 150, 150X, 174A, and 174AX and IODP Expedition 313) and in the Bahamas (ODP Leg 166), but includes an expanded Pliocene section. Completion of at least one transect across a geographically and tectonically distinct siliciclastic margin was the necessary next step in deciphering continental margin stratigraphy. Expedition 317 also complements ODP Leg 181, which focused on drift development in more distal parts of the Eastern New Zealand Oceanic Sedimentary System (ENZOSS).

Description: Integrated Ocean Drilling Program Management International

Description: Published

Description: 2.2. Laboratorio di paleomagnetismo

Description: restricted