ALBERT

Description: Pliocene vegetation dynamics and climate variability in West Africa have been investigated through pollen and XRF-scanning records obtained from sediment cores of ODP Site 659 (18°N, 21°W). The comparison between total pollen accumulation rates and Ti/Ca ratios, which is strongly correlated with the dust input at the site, showed elevated aeolian transport of pollen during dusty periods. Comparison of the pollen records of ODP Site 659 and the nearby Site 658 resulted in a robust reconstruction of West African vegetation change since the Late Pliocene. Between 3.6 and 3.0 Ma the savannah in West Africa differed in composition from its modern counterpart and was richer in Asteraceae, in particular of the Tribus Cichorieae. Between 3.24 and 3.20 Ma a stable wet period is inferred from the Fe/K ratios, which could stand for a narrower and better specified mid-Pliocene (mid-Piacenzian) warm time slice. The northward extension of woodland and savannah, albeit fluctuating, was generally greater in the Pliocene. NE trade wind vigour increased intermittently around 2.7 and 2.6 Ma, and more or less permanently since 2.5 Ma, as inferred from increased pollen concentrations of trade wind indicators (Ephedra, Artemisia, Pinus). Our findings link the NE trade wind development with the intensification of the Northern Hemisphere glaciations (iNHG). Prior to the iNHG, little or no systematic relation could be found between sea surface temperatures of the North Atlantic with aridity and dust in West Africa.

Description: The shoaling and final closure of the Central American Seaway (CAS) resulted in a major change of the global ocean circulation and has been suggested as an essential driver for strengthening of Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC). The exact timing of CAS closure is key to interpreting its importance. Here we present a reconstruction of deep and intermediate water Nd and Pb isotope compositions obtained from fossil fish teeth and the authigenic coatings of planktonic foraminifera in the eastern equatorial Pacific (Ocean Drilling Program (ODP) Site 1241) and the Caribbean (ODP Sites 998, 999, and 1000) covering the final stages of CAS closure between 5.6 and 2.2 Ma. The data for the Pacific site indicate no significant Atlantic/Caribbean influence over this entire period. The Caribbean sites show a continuous trend to less radiogenic Nd isotope compositions during the Pliocene, consistent with an enhancement of Upper North Atlantic Deep Water (UNADW) inflow and a strengthening of the AMOC. Superimposed onto this long-term trend, shorter-term changes of intermediate Caribbean Nd isotope signatures approached more UNADW-like values during intervals when published reconstructions of seawater salinity suggested complete closure of the CAS. The data imply that significant deep water exchange with the Pacific essentially stopped by 7 Ma and that shallow exchange, which still occurred at least periodically until approximately 2.5 Ma, may have been linked to the strength of the AMOC but did not have any direct effect on the intermediate and deep Caribbean Nd isotope signatures through mixing with Pacific waters.

Description: Seismicity patterns offshore Costa Rica (Central America) at the Middle America Trench have led to speculation that large (moment magnitude, Mw ~7.0) earthquakes are associated with subducting topographic highs. In areas of high basement topography, a regionally extensive nannofossil chalk unit is exposed at the seafl oor on the incoming plate, whereas in regions of low basement topography, hemipelagic clay-rich sediment is exposed. Because the entire sediment section is subducted at this margin, lithologic variation in the uppermost subducting sediments may control plate boundary fault behavior. Our laboratory experiments reveal that the chalk is frictionally strong (µ = 0.71-0.88) and characterized by velocity weakening and stick-slip behavior, notably at elevated temperature. In contrast, the hemipelagic sediment is weak (µ = 0.22-0.35) and in many cases velocity strengthening. We suggest that the presence of frictionally unstable carbonates at bathymetric highs may play a key, previously unrecognized, role in governing earthquake nucleation.

Description: The Late Paleocene and Early Eocene were characterised by warm greenhouse climates, punctuated by a series of rapid warming and ocean acidification events known as "hyperthermals", thought to have been paced or triggered by orbital cycles. While these hyperthermals, such as the Paleocene Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), have been studied in great detail, the background low-amplitude cycles seen in carbon and oxygen-isotope records throughout the Paleocene-Eocene have hitherto not been resolved. Here we present a 7.7 million year (myr) long, high-resolution, orbitally-tuned, benthic foraminiferal stable-isotope record spanning the late Paleocene and early Eocene interval (~52.5 - 60.5 Ma) from Ocean Drilling Program (ODP) Site 1262, South Atlantic. This high resolution (~2-4 kyr) record allows the changing character and phasing of orbitally-modulated cycles to be studied in unprecedented detail as it reflects the long-term trend in carbon cycle and climate over this interval. The main pacemaker in the benthic oxygen-isotope (d18O) and carbon-isotope (d13C) records from ODP Site 1262, are the long (405 kyr) and short (100 kyr) eccentricity cycles, and precession (21 kyr). Obliquity (41 kyr) is almost absent throughout the section except for a few brief intervals where it has a relatively weak influence. During the course of the Early Paleogene record, and particularly in the latest Paleocene, eccentricity-paced negative carbon-isotope excursions (d13C, CIEs) and coeval negative oxygen-isotope (d18O) excursions correspond to low carbonate (CaCO3) and coarse fraction (%CF) values due to increased carbonate dissolution, suggesting shoaling of the lysocline and accompanied changes in the global exogenic carbon cycle. These negative CIEs and d18O events coincide with maxima in eccentricity, with changes in d18O leading changes in d13C by ~6 (±5) kyr in the 405-kyr band and by ~3 (±1) kyr in the higher frequency 100-kyr band on average. However, these phase lags are not constant, with the lag in the 405-kyr band extending from ~4 (±5) kyr to ~21 (±2) kyr from the late Paleocene to the early Eocene, suggesting a progressively weaker coupling of climate and the carbon-cycle with time. The higher amplitude 405-kyr cycles in the latest Paleocene are associated with changes in bottom water temperature of 2-4ºC, while the most prominent 100 kyr-paced cycles can be accompanied by changes of up to 1.5ºC. Comparison of the 1262 record with a lower resolution, but orbitally-tuned benthic record for Site 1209 in the Pacific allows for verification of key features of the benthic isotope records which are global in scale including a key warming step at 57.7 Ma.

Description: The membrane lipids diglycosyl-glycerol dibiphytanyl glycerol tetraethers (2G-GDGTs) in marine subsurface sediments are believed to originate from uncultivated benthic archaea, yet the production of 2G-GDGTs from subseafloor samples has not been demonstrated in vitro. In order to validate sedimentary biosynthesis of 2G-GDGTs, we performed a stable carbon isotope probing experiment on a subseafloor sample with six different 13C-labelled substrates (bicarbonate, methane, acetate, leucine, glucose and Spirulina platensis biomass). After 468 days of anoxic incubation, only glucose and S. platensis resulted in label uptake in lipid moieties of 2G-GDGTs, indicating incorporation of carbon from these organic substrates. The hydrophobic moieties of 2G-GDGTs showed minimal label incorporation, with up to 4 per mil 13C enrichment detected in crenarchaeol-derived tricyclic biphytane from the S. platensis-supplemented slurries. The 2G-GDGT-derived glucose or glycerol moieties also showed 13C incorporation (Dd13C = 18 - 38 per mil) in the incubations with glucose or S. platensis, consistent with a lipid salvage mechanism utilized by marine benthic archaea to produce new 2G-GDGTs. The production rates were nevertheless rather slow, even when labile organic matter was supplied. The 2G-GDGT turnover times of 1700 - 20 500 years were much longer than those estimated for subseafloor microbial communities, implying that sedimentary 2G-GDGTs as biomarkers of benthic archaea are cumulative records of past and present generations.

Description: Constraining the nature of Antarctic Ice Sheet (AIS) response to major past climate changes may provide a window onto future ice response and rates of sea level rise. One approach to tracking AIS dynamics, and differentiating whole system versus potentially heterogeneous ice sheet sector changes, is to integrate multiple climate proxies for a specific time slice across widely distributed locations. This study presents new iceberg-rafted debris (IRD) data across the interval that includes Marine Isotope Stage 31 (MIS 31: 1.081-1.062 Ma, a span of ~19 kyr; Lisiecki and Raymo, 2005), which lies on the cusp of the mid-Brunhes climate transition (as glacial cycles shifted from ~41,000 yr to ~100,000 yr duration). Two sites are studied - distal Ocean Drilling Program (ODP) Leg 177 Site 1090 (Site 1090) in the eastern subantarctic sector of the South Atlantic Ocean, and proximal ODP Leg 188 Site 1165 (Site 1165), near Prydz Bay, in the Indian Ocean sector of the Antarctic margin. At each of these sites, MIS 31 is marked by the presence of the Jaramillo Subchron (0.988-1.072 Ma; Lourens et al., 2004) which provides a time-marker to correlate these two sites with relative precision. At both sites, records of multiple climate proxies are available to aid in interpretation. The presence of IRD in sediments from our study areas, which include garnets indicating a likely East Antarctic Ice Sheet (EAIS) origin, supports the conclusion that although the EAIS apparently withdrew significantly over MIS 31 in the Prydz Bay region and other sectors, some sectors of the EAIS must still have maintained marine margins capable of launching icebergs even through the warmest intervals. Thus, the EAIS did not respond in complete synchrony even to major climate changes such as MIS 31. Further, the record at Site 1090 (supported by records from other subantarctic locations) indicates that the glacial MIS 32 should be reduced to no more than a stadial, and the warm interval of Antarctic ice retreat that includes MIS 31 should be expanded to MIS 33-31. This revised warm interval lasted about 52 kyr, in line with several other interglacials in the benthic d18O records stack of Lisiecki and Raymo (2005), including the super-interglacials MIS 11 (duration of 50 kyr) and MIS 5 (duration of 59 kyr). The record from Antarctica-proximal Site 1165, when interpreted in accord with the record from ANDRILL-1B, indicates that in these southern high latitude sectors, ice sheet retreat and the effects of warming lasted longer than at Site 1090, perhaps until MIS 27. In the current interpretations of the age models of the proximal sites, ice sheet retreat began relatively slowly, and was not really evident until the start of MIS 31. In another somewhat more speculative interpretation, ice sheet retreat began noticeably with MIS 33, and accelerated during MIS 31. Ice sheet inertia (the lag-times in the large-scale responses of major ice sheets to a forcing) likely plays an important part in the timing and scale of these events in vulnerable sectors of the AIS.

Description: A feature of Pliocene climate is the occurrence of "permanent El Niño-like" or "El Padre" conditions in the Pacific Ocean. From the analysis of sediment cores in the modern northern Benguela upwelling, we show that the mean oceanographic state off Southwest Africa during the warm Pliocene epoch was also analogous to that of a persistent Benguela "El Niño". At present these events occur when massive southward flows of warm and nutrient-poor waters extend along the coasts of Angola and Namibia, with dramatic effects on regional marine ecosystems and rainfall. We propose that the persistent warmth across the Pliocene in the Benguela upwelling ended synchronously with the narrowing of the Indonesian seaway, and the early intensification of the Northern Hemisphere Glaciations around 3.0-3.5 Ma. The emergence of obliquity-related cycles in the Benguela sea surface temperatures (SST) after 3 Ma highlights the development of strengthened links to high latitude orbital forcing. The subsequent evolution of the Benguela upwelling system was characterized by the progressive intensification of the meridional SST gradients, and the emergence of the 100 ky cycle, until the modern mean conditions were set at the end of the Mid Pleistocene transition, around 0.6 Ma. These findings support the notion that the interplay of changes in the depth of the global thermocline, atmospheric circulation and tectonics preconditioned the climate system for the end of the warm Pliocene epoch and the subsequent intensification of the ice ages.

Description: Sediment samples from both Site 165-999/165-1000 (Atlantic) and Site 202-1241 (Pacific) were chosen at 1Ma intervals over the period 0.3-9.3Ma. Samples were washed and sieved 〈150µm. Splits of the sediment fraction were picked completely to obtain, where possible, at least 30 specimens each of planktic foraminifer species Globigerinoides sacculifer and Globorotalia tumida, on which outline analysis (Fourier) was performed. Sea surface and thermocline temperatures were reconstructed from palaeoenvironmental proxies (UK37' and Tex86H respectively).

Description: A high-resolution stratigraphy is essential toward deciphering climate variability in detail and understanding causality arguments of events in earth history. Because the highly dynamic middle to late Eocene provides a suitable testing ground for carbon cycle models for a waning warm world, an accurate time scale is needed to decode climate-driving mechanisms. Here we present new results from ODP Site 1260 (Leg 207) which covers a unique expanded middle Eocene section (magnetochrons C18r to C20r, late Lutetian to early Bartonian) of the tropical western Atlantic including the chron C19r transient hyperthermal event and the Middle Eocene Climate Optimum (MECO). To establish a detailed cyclostratigraphy we acquired a distinctive iron intensity records by XRF scanning Site 1260 cores. We revise the shipboard composite section, establish a cyclostratigraphy and use the exceptional eccentricity modulated precession cycles for orbital tuning. The new astrochronology revises the age of magnetic polarity chrons C19n to C20n, validates the position of very long eccentricity minima at 40.2 and 43.0 Ma in the orbital solutions, and extends the Astronomically Tuned Geological Time Scale back to 44 Ma. For the first time the new data provide clear evidence for an orbital pacing of the chron C19r event and a likely involvement of the very long eccentricity cycle contributing to the evolution of the MECO.

Description: A high-resolution calcareous nannofossil analysis of the Danian/Selandian boundary was conducted at Site 1262 (Walvis Ridge, South Atlantic) to pinpoint the lowest occurrence of fasciculiths and to unravel the evolutionary trends throughout nannofossil Zone NP4. Using quantitative analyses, numerous primary and secondary bioevents were identified, improving the biostratigraphic resolution of this interval. The main events recorded at Site 1262 were also identified at the Zumaia section Global Stratotype Section and Point (GSSP) of the base of the Selandian and at the Qreiya section (Egypt). The lowest occurrence of fasciculiths (represented by the LO of Gomphiolithus magnicordis and Gomphiolithus magnus) was observed in the middle part of Chron C27r, above the LO of Toweius pertusus and prior to the LO of the genus Sphenolithus. The synchroneity of the LO of fasciculiths was also verified at various latitudes, such as DSDP Site 384 (NW Atlantic), ODP Site 761B (Indian Ocean) and DSDP Site 577A (Pacific Ocean). The first and second diversification events (Steurbaut and Sztrákos, 2008, doi:10.1016/j.marmicro.2007.08.004), or radiation events (Bernaola et al., 2009, doi:10.1344/105.000000272), of fasciculiths have been thoroughly discussed and well characterized by a succession of events. The occurrence of the Latest Danian Event (LDE) and several paleoenvironmental changes recognized during this time interval, coupled with an ecological competition with Sphenolithus, appear to be the probable causes of the First and Second Radiations and the fasciculith barren interval between them. The occurrence of new morphostructures and taxa suggests evolutionary trends and a strict link between morphological evolution and paleoclimate.

Description: Changes in the source of intermediate waters to the southern California margin may have caused variations in seafloor oxygen levels on stadial–interstadial time scales. We test this hypothesis using the Nd isotopic composition of benthic foraminifera and fossil fish debris from ODP Sites 893 and 1017 to track the composition of intermediate waters across interstadials 8-14 (~37-52 ka) during Marine Isotope Stage 3. The epsilon-Nd values of waters bathing the seafloor at Site 893 were typically ~-9 and those bathing Site 1017 were ~-7, both of which are significantly less radiogenic than waters that had originated in either the North Pacific or Southern Ocean (by the time such waters reached the southern California margin). Detrital silicate epsilon-Nd values of nearly -12 suggest that this offset toward lower epsilon-Nd values was likely caused by boundary scavenging that partially overprinted the water mass composition with local/regional fluvial Nd inputs. In spite of the evidence for boundary scavenging, the lack of systematic seawater Nd isotope changes on a stadial–interstadial basis suggests that the provenance of the intermediate waters did not change, and that the waters were derived from the Southern Ocean. Instead, changes in local/regional sea surface productivity may have caused the recorded changes in seafloor oxygenation.

Description: Magnetic properties and oxide petrography results are presented from dike samples recovered during Ocean Drilling Program Legs 137 and 140 at Hole 504B on the Costa Rica Rift. Although secondary magnetite is common, the most abundant magnetic phase is low-titanium magnetite produced during oxidation of primary (igneous) titanomagnetite. In general, titanomagnetite grains in the Leg 137/140 dike samples were observed to have experienced substantially higher degrees of high-temperature deuteric oxidation than the upper portion of the dike complex, suggesting a gradual decrease in the rate of cooling with depth. Paleomagnetic measurements indicate that samples recovered during Legs 137 and 140 acquired a component of drilling-induced remanent magnetization. However, stable magnetic inclinations determined after alternating-field demagnetization indicate the direction of the hardest component of magnetization is very near that predicted for this equatorial site (0°). The average intensity of natural remanent magnetization for the entire dike complex is 2.1 A/m, about half that observed for the overlying extrusive basalts. Room temperature rock magnetic measurements indicate that the effective magnetic grain size of the dike samples falls within the region described as pseudo-single domain. Together, these results suggest that the sheeted dike complex sampled at Hole 504B is capable of contributing to the anomaly observed at sea surface.

Description: Calcareous nannoplankton assemblages and benthic d18O isotopes of Pliocene deep-sea sediments of ODP site 1172 (East of Tasmania) have been studied to improve our knowledge of the Southern Ocean paleoceanography. Our study site is located just north of the Subtropical Front (STF), an ideal setting to monitor migrations of the STF during our study period, between 3.45 and 2.45 Ma. The assemblage identified at ODP site 1172 has been interpreted as characteristic for the transitional zone water mass, located south of the STF, based on: (i) the low abundances (〈 1%) of subtropical taxa, (ii) relatively high percentages of Coccolithus pelagicus, a subpolar type species, (iii) abundances from 2-10% of Calcidiscus leptoporus, a species that frequently inhabits the zone south of the STF and (iv) the high abundances of small Noelaerhabdaceae which at present dominates the zone south of the STF. Across our interval the calcareous nannoplankton manifests glacial-interglacial variability. We have identified cold events, characterized by high abundances of C. pelagicus which coincide with glacial periods, except during G7. After 3.1 Ma cold events are more frequent, in concordance with global cooling trends. Around 2.75 Ma, the interglacial stage G7 is characterized by anomalous low temperatures which most likely are linked to definite closure of the Central American Seaway (CAS), an event that is believed to have had global consequences. A gradual increase of very small Reticulofenestra across our section marks a significant trend in the small Noelaerhabdaceae species group and has been linked to a general enhanced mixing of the water column in agreement with previous studies. It is suggested that a rapid decline of small Gephyrocapsa after isotopic stage G7 might be related to the cooling observed in our study site after the closure of the CAS.

Description: Predicting the impact of ongoing anthropogenic CO2 emissions on calcifying marine organisms is complex, owing to the synergy between direct changes (acidification) and indirect changes through climate change (e.g., warming, changes in ocean circulation, and deoxygenation). Laboratory experiments, particularly on longer-lived organisms, tend to be too short to reveal the potential of organisms to acclimatize, adapt, or evolve and usually do not incorporate multiple stressors. We studied two examples of rapid carbon release in the geological record, Eocene Thermal Maximum 2 (~53.2 Ma) and the Paleocene Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM, ~55.5 Ma), the best analogs over the last 65 Ma for future ocean acidification related to high atmospheric CO2 levels. We use benthic foraminifers, which suffered severe extinction during the PETM, as a model group. Using synchrotron radiation X-ray tomographic microscopy, we reconstruct the calcification response of survivor species and find, contrary to expectations, that calcification significantly increased during the PETM. In contrast, there was no significant response to the smaller Eocene Thermal Maximum 2, which was associated with a minor change in diversity only. These observations suggest that there is a response threshold for extinction and calcification response, while highlighting the utility of the geological record in helping constrain the sensitivity of biotic response to environmental change.

Description: Subtropical Gyres are an important constituent of the ocean-atmosphere system due to their capacity to store vast amounts of warm and saline waters. Here we decipher the sensitivity of the (sub)surface North Atlantic Subtropical Gyre with respect to orbital and millennial scale climate variability between ~140 and 70 ka, Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 5. Using (isotope)geochemical proxy data from surface and thermocline dwelling foraminifers from Blake Ridge off the west coast of North America (ODP Site 1058) we show that the oceanographic development at subsurface (thermocline) level is substantially different from the surface ocean. Most notably, surface temperatures and salinities peak during the penultimate deglaciation (Termination II) and early MIS 5e, implying that subtropical surface ocean heat and salt accumulation might have resulted from a sluggish northward heat transport. In contrast, maximum thermocline temperatures are reached during late MIS 5e when surface temperatures are already declining. We argue that the subsurface warming originated from intensified Ekman downwelling in the Subtropical Gyre due to enhanced wind stress. During MIS 5a-d a tight interplay of the subtropical upper ocean hydrography to high latitude millennial-scale cold events can be observed. At Blake Ridge, the most pronounced of these high latitude cold events are related to surface warming and salt accumulation in the (sub)surface. Similar to Termination II, heat accumulated in the Subtropical Gyre probably due to a reduced Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation. Additionally, a southward shift and intensification of the subtropical wind belts lead to a decrease of on-site precipitation and enhanced evaporation, coupled to intensified gyre circulation. Subsequently, the northward advection of these warm and saline water likely contributed to the fast resumption of the overturning circulation at the end of these high latitude cold events.

Description: The Pacific Ocean is the largest water body on Earth, and circulation in the Pacific contributed significantly to climate evolution in the latest Cretaceous, the culmination of a period of long-term cooling. Here, we present new high-resolution late Campanian to Maastrichtian benthic and planktic foraminiferal stable isotope data and a neodymium (Nd) isotope record obtained from sedimentary ferromanganese oxide coatings of Ocean Drilling Program Hole 1210B from the tropical Pacific Ocean (Shatsky Rise). These new records resolve 13 million years in the latest Cretaceous, providing insights into changes in surface and bottom water temperatures and source regions of deep to intermediate waters covering the carbon isotope excursions of the Campanian-Maastrichtian Boundary Event (CMBE) and the Mid-Maastrichtian event (MME). Our new benthic foraminiferal d18O and Nd isotope records together with published Nd isotope data show markedly parallel trends across the studied interval over a broad range of bathyal to abyssal water depths interpreted to reflect changes in the intensity of deep-ocean circulation in the tropical Pacific. In particular, we observe a three-million-year-long period of cooler conditions in the early Maastrichtian (72.5 to 69.5 Ma) when a concomitant change toward less radiogenic seawater Nd isotope signatures probably marks a period of enhanced admixture and northward flow of deep waters with Southern Ocean provenance. We suggest this change to have been triggered by intensified formation and convection of deep waters in the high southern latitudes, a process that weakened during the MME (69.5 to 68.5 Ma). The early Maastrichtian cold interval is closely related to the negative and positive carbon isotope trends of the CMBE and MME. The millions-of-years long duration of these carbon cycle perturbations suggests a tectonic forcing of climatic cooling, possibly related to changes in ocean basin geometry and bathymetry.

Description: We report d18O and minor element (Mg/Ca, Sr/Ca) data acquired by high-resolution, in situ secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS) from planktic foraminiferal shells and 100-500 µm sized diagenetic crystallites recovered from a deep-sea record (ODP Site 865) of the Paleocene-Eocene thermal maximum (PETM). The d18O of crystallites (~1.2 per mil Pee Dee Belemnite (PDB)) is ~4.8 per mil higher than that of planktic foraminiferal calcite (-3.6 per mil PDB), while crystallite Mg/Ca and Sr/Ca ratios are slightly higher and substantially lower than in planktic foraminiferal calcite, respectively. The focused stratigraphic distribution of the crystallites signals an association with PETM conditions; hence, we attribute their formation to early diagenesis initially sourced by seafloor dissolution (burndown) ensued by reprecipitation at higher carbonate saturation. The Mg/Ca ratios of the crystallites are an order of magnitude lower than those predicted by inorganic precipitation experiments, which may reflect a degree of inheritance from "donor" phases of biogenic calcite that underwent solution in the sediment column. In addition, SIMS d18O and electron microprobe Mg/Ca analyses that were taken within a planktic foraminiferal shell yield parallel increases along traverses that coincide with muricae blades on the chamber wall. The parallel d18O and Mg/Ca increases indicate a diagenetic origin for the blades, but their d18O value (-0.5 per mil PDB) is lower than that of crystallites suggesting that these two phases of diagenetic carbonate formed at different times. Finally, we posit that elevated levels of early diagenesis acted in concert with sediment mixing and carbonate dissolution to attenuate the d18O decrease signaling PETM warming in "whole-shell" records published for Site 865.

Description: Cool tropical sea surface temperatures (SSTs) are reported for warm Paleogene greenhouse climates based on the d18O of planktonic foraminiferal tests. These results are difficult to reconcile with models of greenhouse gas-forced climate. It has been suggested that this "cool tropics paradox" arises from postdepositional alteration of foraminiferal calcite, yielding erroneously high d18O values. Recrystallization of foraminiferal tests is cryptic and difficult to quantify, and the compilation of robust d18O records from moderately altered material remains challenging. Scanning electron microscopy of planktonic foraminiferal chamber-wall cross sections reveals that the basal area of muricae, pustular outgrowths on the chamber walls of species belonging to the genus Morozovella, contain no mural pores and may be less susceptible to postdepositional alteration. We analyzed the d18O in muricae bases of morozovellids from the central Pacific (Ocean Drilling Program Site 865) by ion microprobe using 10 mm pits with an analytical reproducibility of ±0.34 per mil (2 standard deviations). In situ measurements of d18O in these domains yield consistently lower values than those published for conventional multispecimen analyses. Assuming that the original d18O is largely preserved in the basal areas of muricae, this new d18O record indicates Early Paleogene (~49-56 Ma) tropical SSTs in the central Pacific were 4°-8°C higher than inferred from the previously published d18O record and that SSTs reached at least ~33°C during the Paleocene-Eocene thermal maximum. This study demonstrates the utility of ion microprobe analysis for generating more reliable paleoclimate records from moderately altered foraminiferal tests preserved in deep-sea sediments.

Description: Modern savannah grasslands were established during the late Miocene and Pliocene (8-3 million years ago). In the tropics, grasslands are dominated by grasses that use the C4 photosynthetic pathway, rather than the C3 pathway. The C4 pathway is better adapted to warm, dry and low-CO2 conditions, leading to suggestions that declining atmospheric CO2 levels, increasing aridity and enhanced rainfall seasonality allowed grasses using this pathway to expand during this interval. The role of fire in C4 expansion may have been underestimated. Here we use analyses of pollen, microscopic charcoal and the stable isotopic composition of plant waxes from a marine sediment core off the coast of Namibia to reconstruct the relative timing of changes in plant composition and fire activity for the late Miocene and Pliocene. We find that in southwestern Africa, the expansion of C4 grasses occurred alongside increasing aridity and enhanced fire activity. During further aridification in the Pliocene, the proportion of C4 grasses in the grasslands increased, while the grassland contracted and deserts and semi-deserts expanded. Our results are consistent with the hypothesis that ecological disturbance by fire was an essential feedback mechanism leading to the establishment of C4 grasslands in the Miocene and Pliocene.

Description: The impact of an asteroid at the Cretaceous/Paleogene (K/Pg) boundary triggered dramatic biotic, biogeochemical and sedimentological changes in the oceans that have been intensively studied. Paleo-biogeographical differences in the biotic response to the impact and its environmental consequences, however, have been less well documented. We present a high-resolution analysis of benthic foraminiferal assemblages at Southern Ocean ODP Site 690 (Maud Rise, Weddell Sea, Antarctica). At this high latitude site, late Maastrichtian environmental variability was high, but benthic foraminiferal assemblages were not less diverse than at lower latitudes, in contrast to those of planktic calcifiers. Also in contrast to planktic calcifiers, benthic foraminifera did not suffer significant extinction at the K/Pg boundary, but show transient assemblage changes and decreased diversity. At Site 690, the extinction rate was even lower (~3%) than at other sites. The benthic foraminiferal accumulation rate varied little across the K/Pg boundary, indicating that food supply to the sea floor was affected to a lesser extent than at lower latitude sites. Compared to Maastrichtian assemblages, Danian assemblages have a lower diversity and greater relative abundance of heavily calcified taxa such as Stensioeina beccariiformis and Paralabamina lunata. This change in benthic foraminiferal assemblages could reflect post-extinction proliferation of different photosynthesizers (thus food for the benthos) than those dominant during the Late Cretaceous, therefore changes in the nature rather than in the amount of the organic matter supplied to the seafloor. However, severe extinction of pelagic calcifiers caused carbonate supersaturation in the oceans, thus might have given competitive advantage to species with large, heavily calcified tests. This indirect effect of the K/Pg impact thus may have influenced the deep-sea dwellers, documenting the complexity of the effects of major environmental disturbance.

Description: Many genera of modern planktic foraminifera are adapted to nutrient-poor (oligotrophic) surface waters by hosting photosynthetic symbionts, but it is unknown how they will respond to future changes in ocean temperature and acidity. Here we show that ca. 40 Ma, some fossil photosymbiont-bearing planktic foraminifera were temporarily 'bleached' of their symbionts coincident with transient global warming during the Middle Eocene Climatic Optimum (MECO). At Ocean Drilling Program (ODP) Sites 748 and 1051 (Southern Ocean and mid-latitude North Atlantic, respectively), the typically positive relationship between the size of photosymbiont-bearing planktic foraminifer tests and their carbon isotope ratios (d13C) was temporarily reduced for ~100 k.y. during the peak of the MECO. At the same time, the typically photosymbiont-bearing planktic foraminifera Acarinina suffered transient reductions in test size and relative abundance, indicating ecological stress. The coincidence of minimum d18O values and reduction in test size-d13C gradients suggests a link between increased sea-surface temperatures and bleaching during the MECO, although changes in pH and nutrient availability may also have played a role. Our findings show that host-photosymbiont interactions are not constant through geological time, with implications for both the evolution of trophic strategies in marine plankton and the reliability of geochemical proxy records generated from symbiont-bearing planktic foraminifera.

Description: Deciphering the driving mechanisms of Earth system processes, including the climate dynamics expressed as paleoceanographic events, requires a complete, continuous, and high-resolution stratigraphy that is very accurately dated. In this study, we construct a robust astronomically calibrated age model for the middle Eocene to early Oligocene interval (31-43 Ma) in order to permit more detailed study of the exceptional climatic events that occurred during this time, including the Middle Eocene Climate Optimum and the Eocene/Oligocene transition. A goal of this effort is to accurately date the middle Eocene to early Oligocene composite section cored during the Pacific Equatorial Age Transect (PEAT, IODP Exp. 320/321). The stratigraphic framework for the new time scale is based on the identification of the stable long eccentricity cycle in published and new high-resolution records encompassing bulk and benthic stable isotope, calibrated XRF core scanning, and magnetostratigraphic data from ODP Sites 171B-1052, 189-1172, 199-1218, and 207-1260 as well as IODP Sites 320-U1333, and -U1334 spanning magnetic polarity Chrons C12n to C20n. Subsequently we applied orbital tuning of the records to the La2011 orbital solution. The resulting new time scale revises and refines the existing orbitally tuned age model and the Geomagnetic Polarity Time Scale from 31 to 43 Ma. Our newly defined absolute age for the Eocene/Oligocene boundary validates the astronomical tuned age of 33.89 Ma identified at the Massignano (Italy) global stratotype section and point. Our compilation of geochemical records of climate-controlled variability in sedimentation through the middle-to-late Eocene and early Oligocene demonstrates strong power in the eccentricity band that is readily tuned to the latest astronomical solution. Obliquity driven cyclicity is only apparent during very long eccentricity cycle minima around 35.5 Ma, 38.3 Ma and 40.1 Ma.

Description: The largest increase in export production in the eastern Pacific of the last 5.3 Myr (million years) occurred between 2.2 and 1.6 Myr, a time of major climatic and oceanographic reorganization in the region. Here, we investigate the causes of this event using reconstructions of export production, nutrient supply and oceanic conditions across the Pliocene-Pleistocene in the eastern equatorial Pacific (EEP) for the last 3.2 Myr. Our results indicate that the export production peak corresponds to a cold interval marked by high nutrient supply relative to consumption, as revealed by the low bulk sedimentary 15N/14N (d15N) and alkenone-derived sea surface temperature (SST) values. This ~0.6 million year long episode of enhanced delivery of nutrients to the surface of the EEP was predominantly initiated through the upwelling of nutrient-enriched water sourced in high latitudes. In addition, this phenomenon was likely promoted by the regional intensification of upwelling in response to the development of intense Walker and Hadley atmospheric circulations. Increased nutrient consumption in the polar oceans and enhanced denitrification in the equatorial regions restrained nutrient supply and availability and terminated the high export production event.

Description: Salinity increase in the subtropical gyre system may have pre-conditioned the North Atlantic Ocean for a rapid return to stronger overturning circulation and high-latitude warming following meltwater events during the Last Glacial period. Here we investigate the Gulf Stream - subtropical gyre system properties over Dansgaard-Oeschger (DO) cycles 14 to 12, including Heinrich ice-rafting event 5. During the Holocene and Last Glacial Maximum a positive gradient in surface dwelling planktonic foraminifera d18O (Globigerinoides ruber) can be observed between the Gulf Stream and subtropical gyre, due to decreasing temperature, increasing salinity, and a change from summer to year-round occurrence of G. ruber. We assess whether this gradient was a common feature during stadial-interstadial climate oscillations of Marine Isotope Stage 3, by comparing existing G. ruber d18O from ODP Site 1060 (subtropical gyre location) and new data from ODP Site 1056 (Gulf Stream location) between 54 and 46 ka. Our results suggest that this gradient was largely absent during the period studied. During the major warm DO interstadials 14 and 12 we infer a more zonal and wider Gulf Stream, influencing both ODP Sites 1056 and 1060. A Gulf Stream presence during these major interstadials is also suggested by the large vertical d18O gradient between shallow dwelling planktonic foraminifera species, especially G. ruber, and the deep dwelling species Globorotalia inflata at site 1056, which we associate with strong summer stratification and Gulf Stream presence. A major reduction in this vertical d18O gradient from 51 ka until the end of Heinrich event 5 at 48.5 ka suggests site 1056 was situated within the subtropical gyre in this mainly cold period, from which we infer a migration of the Gulf Stream to a position nearer to the continental shelf, indicative of a narrower Gulf Stream with possibly reduced transport.

Description: We report relative paleointensity proxy records from four piston cores collected near the Agulhas Ridge and Meteor Rise (South Atlantic). The mean sedimentation rate of the cores varies from 24 cm/kyr to 11 cm/kyr. The two cores with mean sedimentation rates over 20 cm/kyr record positive remanence inclinations at 40-41 ka coeval with the Laschamp Event. Age models are based on oxygen isotope data from three of the cores, augmented by radiocarbon ages from nearby Core RC11-83, and by correlation of paleointensity records for the one core with no oxygen isotope data. The relative paleointensity proxy records are the first from the South Atlantic and from the high to mid-latitude southern hemisphere. Prominent paleointensity lows at ?40 ka and ?65 ka, as well as many other features, can be correlated to paleointensity records of comparable resolution from the northern hemisphere. The records are attributable, in large part, to the global-scale field, and therefore have potential for inter-hemispheric correlation at a resolution difficult to achieve with isotope data alone.

Description: Growing evidence suggests that the low atmospheric CO2 concentration of the ice ages resulted from enhanced storage of CO2 in the ocean interior, largely as a result of changes in the Southern Ocean1. Early in the most recent deglaciation, a reduction in North Atlantic overturning circulation seems to have driven CO2 release from the Southern Ocean**2, 3, 4, 5, but the mechanism connecting the North Atlantic and the Southern Ocean remains unclear. Biogenic opal export in the low-latitude ocean relies on silicate from the underlying thermocline, the concentration of which is affected by the circulation of the ocean interior. Here we report a record of biogenic opal export from a coastal upwelling system off the coast of northwest Africa that shows pronounced opal maxima during each glacial termination over the past 550,000 years. These opal peaks are consistent with a strong deglacial reduction in the formation of silicate-poor glacial North Atlantic intermediate water**2 (GNAIW). The loss of GNAIW allowed mixing with underlying silicate-rich deep water to increase the silicate supply to the surface ocean. An increase in westerly-wind-driven upwelling in the Southern Ocean in response to the North Atlantic change has been proposed to drive the deglacial rise in atmospheric CO2 (refs 3, 4). However, such a circulation change would have accelerated the formation of Antarctic intermediate water and sub-Antarctic mode water, which today have as little silicate as North Atlantic Deep Water and would have thus maintained low silicate concentrations in the Atlantic thermocline. The deglacial opal maxima reported here suggest an alternative mechanism for the deglacial CO2 release**5, 6. Just as the reduction in GNAIW led to upward silicate transport, it should also have allowed the downward mixing of warm, low-density surface water to reach into the deep ocean. The resulting decrease in the density of the deep Atlantic relative to the Southern Ocean surface promoted Antarctic overturning, which released CO2 to the atmosphere.

Description: The western Lau Basin, between the Central and Eastern Lau Spreading Centers and the Lau Ridge, contains several small, elongate, fault-bounded, partially sediment-filled sub-basins. Sites 834 and 835 were drilled in the oldest part of the Lau Basin in two of these small extensional basins close to the Lau Ridge, formed on late Miocene to early Pliocene oceanic crust. Both sites show a similar sediment sequence that consists of clayey nannofossil oozes and mixed sediments interbedded with epiclastic vitric sands and silts. The vitric sands and silts are largely restricted to the deeper part of the sediment column (early Pliocene-late Pliocene), and the upper part of the sediment column at both sites consists of a distinctive sequence of brown clayey nannofossil ooze, stained by iron and manganese oxyhydroxides (late Pliocene-Holocene). However, the clayey nannofossil ooze sequence at Site 835 is anomalously thick and contains several medium- to very thick beds of matrix-supported, mud-clast conglomerate (interpreted as muddy debris-flow deposits), together with large amounts of redeposited clayey nannofossil ooze and coherent rafted blocks of older hemipelagic material. Redeposited clayey nannofossil oozes can be distinguished from hemipelagic nannofossil oozes using several sedimentological criteria. These include variation in color hue and chroma, presence or absence of bioturbation, presence or absence of scattered foraminifers, grain-size characteristics, variability in calcium carbonate content, presence or absence of pumice clasts, and micropaleontology. Clayey nannofossil ooze turbidites and hemipelagites are also geochemically distinct, with the turbidites being commonly enriched in Mn, Ni, Pb, Zn, Cr, and P. The sediment sequence at Site 835 is dominated by allochthonous sediments, either muddy debris-flow deposits, coherent rafted blocks, or thick clayey nannofossil ooze turbidites. Since 2.9 Ma, only 25% of the 133 m of sediments deposited represents hemipelagic deposition, with an average sedimentation rate of 1.5 cm/k.y.. Allochthonous sediments were the main sediment type deposited during the Brunhes geomagnetic Epoch and make up 80% of the thickness of sediment deposited during this period. Short intervals of mainly hemipelagic deposition occurred from 0.4 to 0.9 Ma, 1.0 to 1.4 Ma, and 1.7 to 2.1 Ma. However, allochthonous sediments were again the dominant sediment type deposited between 2.1 and 2.5 Ma, with a large slide complex emplaced around 2.5 Ma. We conclude that the adjacent high ground, surrounding the basin in which Site 835 was drilled, was affected by marked instability throughout the late Pliocene and Pleistocene. In contrast, sedimentation at Site 834 during this period has been dominated by hemipelagic deposition, with redeposited sediments making up slightly less than 17% of the total thickness of sediment deposited since 2.3 Ma. However, there was a marked increase in frequency and magnitude of redeposited sediments at around 0.2 Ma at Site 834, which broadly corresponds to the onset of a major episode of turbidite and debris-flow emplacement beginning about 0.4 Ma at Site 835. This episode of instability at both sites may be the effect of the approach and passing of the Central Lau propagator at the latitude of Sites 834 and 835 at about 0.5 Ma.

Description: In addition to Oceanic Anoxic Event 2 (OAE2), other perturbations of the carbon cycle occurred during the Cenomanian and Turonian, of which the Middle Cenomanian Event (MCE) is the most prominent one. In palaeoecological publications, however, this event is strongly underrepresented in contrast to the well-studied OAE2. In order to fill this gap, we have studied Early Cenomanian to Late Turonian calcareous nannofossil and benthic foraminiferal assemblages of Ocean Drilling Program Site 1260 at Demerara Rise (western equatorial North Atlantic), in order to decipher biotic changes throughout this interval and especially across the MCE. Our data show distinctive changes in the relative abundance of certain calcareous nannofossil taxa and a drastic decrease in benthic foraminiferal diversities and abundances associated with the MCE. In the lower part of the studied section and prior to the MCE, a mixed water-column with high nutrient availability in the upper photic zone is suggested based on very high relative abundances of the mesotrophic/eutrophic nannofossil species Biscutum constans. Around the MCE interval, certain nannofossil taxa (e.g., Rhagodiscus asper) show a distinctive decrease in relative abundance while others become more dominant. Taxa which increase in relative abundance after the MCE (e.g., Eprolithus floralis) are interpreted as either having favoured less eutrophic surface-waters or having inhabited deeper parts of the photic zone in a well stratified water-column. This interpretation is supported by published oxygen isotope and TEX86 data, which suggest increased water-column stratification starting with the MCE and lasting to the end of the Cenomanian stage, as a result of the implementation of a saline intermediate- to deep-water mass during this interval. Our study shows that the MCE was a significant biotic event in the Cenomanian/Turonian equatorial Atlantic, characterised by a lasting change of surface- and bottom-water ecosystems.

Description: Earth's climate underwent a fundamental change between 1250 and 700 thousand years ago, the Mid-Pleistocene Transition (MPT), when the dominant periodicity of climate cycles changed from 41,000 to 100,000 years in the absence of significant change in orbital forcing. Over this time, an increase occurred in the amplitude of change of deep ocean foraminiferal oxygen isotopic ratios, traditionally interpreted as defining the main rhythm of ice ages although containing large effects of changes in deep-ocean temperature. We have separated the effects of decreasing temperature and increasing global ice volume on oxygen isotope ratios. Our results suggest that the MPT was initiated by an abrupt increase in Antarctic ice volume at 900 ka. We see no evidence of a pattern of gradual cooling but near-freezing temperatures occur at every glacial maximum.

Description: The role that meridional overturning circulation (MOC) patterns played in poleward heat transport during the extreme warmth of the Early to Late Cretaceous is a fundamental and unresolved question in climate dynamics. In order to address this question we must determine where deep waters formed, and how they may have circulated during periods of extreme warmth. Here we present late Albian through Maastrichtian (105 to 65 Ma) Nd isotope records from Deep Sea Drilling Project (DSDP) and Ocean Drilling Program (ODP) sites in the proto-Indian Ocean and the tropical Pacific. Comparison of these data with previously published records indicates deep-water formation in the Indian sector of the Southern Ocean began at least ∼105 Ma, extending the record of high-latitude convection back into the Early Cretaceous prior to the peak warmth of the mid-Cretaceous. The growing body of data supports a mode of MOC in part characterized by high-latitude downwelling during the peak of greenhouse warmth of the Mesozoic and Cenozoic. However, this mode of MOC likely was characterized by numerous locations of deep convection that were regionally important, but not significant in terms of a globally overturning circulation due to paleogeographic and bathymetric barriers.

Description: Studying diffusive transport in porous rocks is of fundamental importance in understanding a variety of geochemical processes including: element transfer, primary mineral dissolution kinetics and precipitation of secondary phases. Here we report new findings on the relationship between diffusive transport and textural characteristics of the pore systems on the example of mid-oceanic ridge basalts having different degree of alteration but very similar bulk pore volume. Diffusion processes in porous basalts were studied in situ using H2O -〉 D2O exchange experiments. The effective diffusion coefficients of water molecules increase systematically from 5.05*10**-11 to 1.19*10**-10 m**2/s for fresh and moderately altered basalts and from 2.40*10**-11 to 6.72*10**-11 m**2/s for completely altered basalt as temperature increases from 5 to 50 °C. The activation energy of the diffusion process increases from 12.29 ± 0.71 kJ/mol for fresh and moderately altered basalts to 14.3 ± 1.33 kJ/mol for completely altered basalt. The results indicate that neither the bulk porosity nor the degree of alteration can be used as proxies for the efficiency of element transport during MORB-water interaction. The formation of secondary phases that replace primary minerals and fill the pore space in the rock leads to the formation of tiny pores and phases with large specific surface area. These factors might have a dominant control on the transport properties of altered basaltic rocks.

Description: Barium concentrations were measured in pore fluids and sediments from the shallow forearc of the Costa Rica subduction zone to investigate the impact of progressive barite dissolution coupled to [SO4]2- depletion on the residual sediment Ba flux to the volcanic arc and mantle. At the Costa Rica subduction zone, the entire sediment section entering the trench is underthrust beneath the prism sediments of the overriding plate. Dissolved [SO4]2- concentrations measured in the reference sediment section in the incoming plate at ODP Site 1039/1253 vary between 13 and 29 mM. At ODP Site 1040/1254, 1.6 km arcward from the trench, [SO4]2- is depleted in the ~370 m of prism sediments as well as in the upper 30 m of the underthrust sediments. This suggests that, upon subduction, [SO4]2- diffusion from seawater into the underthrust sediment section ceases and the available pore fluid [SO4]2- at the top of the section is consumed by active microbial [SO4]2- reduction. Because the only remaining source of [SO4]2- is in the underthrust sediments, the depth of [SO4]2- depletion in the underthrust sediments must increase with distance from the trench. Dissolved Ba2+ concentrations in the uppermost underthrust sediments at Site 1040/1254 are several orders of magnitude greater than in the reference sediment section at Site 1039/1253, indicating intense barite dissolution coupled to [SO4]2- depletion. This is corroborated by a 50% decrease in the barite content within this unit. As a result of tectonic compaction, the dissolved Ba2+ released from barite dissolution is transported seaward and reprecipitated as barite when reaching [SO4]2- -rich fluids. As [SO4]2- depletion continues arcward, greater losses of sedimentary barite must occur in the subducting sediments. If all the barite is dissolved from the subducting sediment section, 60% of the incoming bulk sediment Ba will be distilled from the sediments in the shallow forearc. Balancing the Ba output flux with this lower input flux requires a much larger sediment component recycled to the volcanic arc than previously suggested. These results indicate that diagenetic mobilization of Ba from barite can have a profound impact on the chemical composition of sediments recycled to the arc and mantle, and should be considered in the global budget of subducted sediments.

Description: Spatiotemporal patterns of carbonate dissolution provide a critical constraint on carbon input during an ancient (~55.5 Ma) global warming event known as the Paleocene-Eocene thermal maximum (PETM), yet the magnitude of lysocline shoaling in the Southern Ocean is poorly constrained due to limited spatial coverage in the circum-Antarctic region. This shortcoming is partially addressed by comparing patterns of carbonate sedimentation at the Site 690 PETM reference section to those herein reconstructed for nearby Site 689. Biochemostratigraphic correlation of the two records reveals that the first ~36 ka of the carbon isotope excursion (CIE) signaling PETM conditions is captured by the Site 689 section, while the remainder of the CIE interval and nearly all of the CIE recovery are missing due to a coring gap. A relatively expanded stratigraphy and higher carbonate content at mid-bathyal Site 689 indicate that dissolution was less severe than at Site 690. Thus, the bathymetric transect delimited by these two PETM records indicates that the lysocline shoaled above Site 689 (~1,100 m) while the calcite compensation depth remained below Site 690 (~1,900 m) in the Weddell Sea region. The ensuing recovery of carbonate sedimentation conforms to a bathymetric trend best explained by gradual lysocline deepening as negative feedback mechanisms neutralized ocean acidification. Further, biochemostratigraphic evidence indicates the tail end of the CIE recovery interval at both sites has been truncated by a hiatus most likely related to vigorous production and advection of intermediate waters.

Description: We have analyzed the Nd isotopic composition of both ancient seawater and detrital material from long sequences of carbonated oozes of the South Indian Ocean which are ODP Site 756 (Ninety East Ridge (-30°S), 1518 m water depth) and ODP Site 762 (Northwest Australian margin, 1360 m water depth). The measurements indicate that the epsilon-Nd changes in Indian seawater over the last 35 Ma result from changes in the oceanic circulation, large volcanic and continental weathering Nd inputs. This highlights the diverse nature of those controls and their interconnections in a small area of the ocean. These new records combined with those previously obtained at the equatorial ODP Sites 757 and 707 in the Indian Ocean (Gourlan et al., 2008, doi:10.1016/j.epsl.2007.11.054) established that the distribution of intermediate seawater epsilon-Nd was uniform over most of the Indian Ocean from 35 Ma to 10 Ma within a geographical area extending from 40°S to the equator and from -60°E to 120°E. However, the epsilon-Nd value of Indian Ocean seawater which kept an almost constant value (at about -7 to -8) from 35 to 15 Ma rose by 3 epsilon-Nd units from 15 to 10 Ma. This sharp increase has been caused by a radiogenic Nd enrichment of the water mass originating from the Pacific flowing through the Indonesian Passage. Using a two end-members model we calculated that the Nd transported to the Indian Ocean through the Indonesian Pathway was 1.7 times larger at 10 Ma than at 15 Ma. The Nd isotopic composition of ancient seawater and that of the sediment detrital component appear to be strongly correlated for some specific events. A first evidence occurs between 20 and 15 Ma with two positive spikes recorded in both epsilon-Nd signals that are clearly induced by a volcanic crisis of, most likely, the St. Paul hot-spot. A second evidence is the very large epsilon-Nd decrease recorded at ODP Sites 756 and 762 during the past 10 Ma which has never been previously observed. The synchronism between the epsilon-Nd decrease in seawater from 10 to 5 Ma and evidences of desertification in the western part of the nearly Australian continent suggests enhanced weathering inputs in this ocean from this continent as a result of climatic changes.

Description: Geomagnetic excursions are recognized as intrinsic features of the Earth's magnetic field. High-resolution records of field behaviour, captured in marine sedimentary cores, present an opportunity to determine the temporal and geometric character of the field during geomagnetic excursions and provide constraints on the mechanisms producing field variability. We present here the highest resolution record yet published of the Blake geomagnetic excursion (~125 ka) measured in three cores from Ocean Drilling Program (ODP) Site 1062 on the Blake-Bahama Outer Ridge. The Blake excursion has a controversial structure and timing but these cores have a sufficiently high sedimentation rate (~10cm/ka) to allow detailed reconstruction of the field behaviour at this site during the excursion. Palaeomagnetic measurements of the cores reveal rapid transitions (〈500 yr) between the contemporary stable normal polarity and a completely reversed state of long duration which spans a stratigraphic interval of 0.7 m. We determine the duration of the reversed state during the Blake excursion using oxygen isotope stratigraphy, combined with 230Th excess measurements to assess variations in the sedimentation rates through the sections of interest. This provides an age and duration for the Blake excursion with greater accuracy and with constrained uncertainty. We date the directional excursion as falling between 129 and 122 ka with a duration for the deviation of 6.5±1.3 kyr. The long duration of this interval and the fully reversed field suggest the existence of a pseudo-stable, reversed dipole field component during the excursion and challenge the idea that excursions are always of short duration.

Description: The MBT-CBT proxy for the reconstruction of paleotemperatures and past soil pH is based on the distribution of branched glycerol dialkyl glycerol tetraether (brGDGT) membrane lipids. The Methylation of Branched Tetraether (MBT) and the Cyclisation of Branched Tetraether (CBT) indices were developed to quantify these distributions, and significant empirical relations between these indices and annual mean air temperature (MAT) and/or soil pH were found in a large data set of soils. In this study, we extended this soil dataset to 278 globally distributed surface soils. Of these soils, 26% contains all nine brGDGTs, while in 63% of the soils the seven most common brGDGTs were detected, and the latter were selected for calibration purposes. This resulted in new transfer functions for the reconstruction of pH based on the CBT index: pH = 7.90-1.97 × CBT (r**2 = 0.70; RMSE = 0.8; n = 176), as well as for MAT based on the CBT index and methylation index based on the seven most abundant GDGTs (defined as MBT'): MAT = 0.81-5.67 × CBT + 31.0 × MBT' (r**2 = 0.59; RMSE = 5.0 °C; n = 176). The new transfer function for MAT has a substantially lower correlation coefficient than the original equation (r**2 = 0.77). To investigate possible improvement of the correlation, we used our extended global surface soil dataset to statistically derive the indices that best describe the relations of brGDGT composition with MAT and soil pH. These new indices, however, resulted in only a relatively minor increase in correlation coefficients, while they cannot be explained straightforwardly by physiological mechanisms. The large scatter in the calibration cannot be fully explained by local factors or by seasonality, but MAT for soils from arid regions are generally substantially (up to 20 °C) underestimated, suggesting that absolute brGDGT-based temperature records for these areas should be interpreted with caution. The applicability of the new MBT'-CBT calibration function was tested using previously published MBT-CBT-derived paleotemperature records covering the last deglaciation in Central Africa and East Asia, the Eocene-Oligocene boundary and the Paleocene-Eocene thermal maximum. The results show that trends remain similar in all records, but that absolute temperature estimates and the amplitude of temperature changes are lower for most records, and generally in better agreement with independent proxy data.

Description: In the New Jersey Coastal Plain, a silty to clayey sedimentary unit (the Marlboro Formation) represents deposition during the Paleocene-Eocene thermal maximum (PETM). This interval is remarkably different from the glauconitic sands and silts of the underlying Paleocene Vincentown and overlying Eocene Manasquan Formation. We integrate new and published stable isotope, biostratigraphic, lithostratigraphic and ecostratigraphic records, constructing a detailed time frame for the PETM along a depth gradient at core sites Clayton, Wilson Lake, Ancora and Bass River (updip to downdip). The onset of the PETM, marked by the base of the carbon isotope excursion (CIE), is within the gradual transition from glauconitic silty sands to silty clay, and represented fully at the updip sites (Wilson Lake and Clayton). The CIE "core" interval is expanded at the updip sites, but truncated. The CIE "core" is complete at the Bass River and Ancora sites, where the early part of the recovery is present (most complete at Ancora). The extent to which the PETM is expressed in the sediments is highly variable between sites, with a significant unconformity at the base of the overlying lower Eocene sediments. Our regional correlation framework provides an improved age model, allowing better understanding of the progression of environmental changes during the PETM. High-resolution benthic foraminiferal data document the change from a sediment-starved shelf setting to a tropical, river-dominated mud-belt system during the PETM, probably due to intensification of the hydrologic cycle. The excellent preservation of foraminifera during the PETM and the lack of severe benthic extinction suggest there was no extreme ocean acidification in shelf settings.

Description: The rate of uranium accumulation in oceanic sediments from seawater is controlled by bottom water oxygen concentrations and organic carbon fluxes-two parameters that are linked to deep ocean storage of CO2. To investigate glacial-interglacial changes in what is known as authigenic U, we have developed a rapid method for its determination as a simple addition to a procedure for foraminiferal trace element analysis. Foraminiferal calcite acts as a low U substrate (U/Ca 〈 15 nmol/mol) upon which authigenic U accumulates in reducing sediments. We measured a downcore record of foraminiferal U/Ca from ODP Site 1090 in the South Atlantic and found that U/Ca ratios increase by 70-320 nmol/mol during glacial intervals. There is a significant correlation between U/Ca records of benthic and planktonic foraminiferal species and between U/Ca and bulk sediment authigenic U. These results indicate that elevated U/Ca ratios are attributable to the accumulation of authigenic U coatings in sediments. Foraminiferal Mn/Ca ratios were lower during the glacial intervals, suggesting that the observed U accumulation on the shells is not directly linked to U incorporation into secondary manganese phases. Thus, foraminiferal U/Ca ratios may provide useful information on past changes in sediment redox conditions.

Description: This work presents the stratigraphic distribution of several species of calcareous nannofossil in the middle Eocene early-Oligocene from four Ocean Drilling Program (ODP) sites located between 60° and 65°S paleolatitude in the Southern Atlantic and Indian Oceans. Useful nannofossil datums that should facilitate construction of age-models and contribute to an integrated chronology for the upper Paleogene Southern Ocean sediments from ~42 to 33 Ma are summarized. The distribution patterns of calcareous nannofossils, studied by means of quantitative and semiquantitative methods, provide an improvement of the classical Southern Ocean biozonations, introducing new biostratigraphically useful biohorizons, and testing their reproducibility within and outside the region.

Description: Neodymium isotopes are becoming widely used as a palaeoceanographic tool for reconstructing the source and flow direction of water masses. A new method using planktonic foraminifera which have not been chemically cleaned has proven to be a promising means of avoiding contamination of the deep ocean palaeoceanographic signal by detrital material. However, the exact mechanism by which the Nd isotope signal from bottom waters becomes associated with planktonic foraminifera, the spatial distribution of rare earth element (REE) concentrations within the shell, and the possible mobility of REE ions during changing redox conditions, have not been fully investigated. Here we present REE concentration and Nd isotope data from mixed species of planktonic foraminifera taken from plankton tows, sediment traps and a sediment core from the NW Atlantic. We used multiple geochemical techniques to evaluate how, where and when REEs become associated with planktonic foraminifera as they settle through the water column, reside at the surface and are buried in the sediment. Analyses of foraminifera shells from plankton tows and sediment traps between 200 and 2938 m water depth indicate that only ~20% of their associated Nd is biogenically incorporated into the calcite structure. The remaining 80% is associated with authigenic metal oxides and organic matter, which form in the water column, and remain extraneous to the carbonate structure. Remineralisation of these organic and authigenic phases releases ions back into solution and creates new binding sites, allowing the Nd isotope ratio to undergo partial equilibration with the ambient seawater, as the foraminifera fall through the water column. Analyses of fossil foraminifera shells from sediment cores show that their REE concentrations increase by up to 10-fold at the sediment-water interface, and acquire an isotopic signature of bottom water. Adsorption and complexation of REE3+ ions between the inner layers of calcite contributes significantly to elevated REE concentrations in foraminifera. The most likely source of REE ions at this stage of enrichment is from bottom waters and from the remineralisation of oxide phases which are in chemical equilibrium with the bottom waters. As planktonic foraminifera are buried below the sediment-water interface redox-sensitive ion concentrations are adjusted within the shells depending on the pore-water oxygen concentration. The concentration of ions which are passively redox sensitive, such as REE3+ ions, is also controlled to some extent by this process. We infer that (a) the Nd isotope signature of bottom water is preserved in planktonic foraminifera and (b) that it relies on the limited mobility of particle reactive REE3+ ions, aided in some environments by micron-scale precipitation of MnCO3. This study indicates that there may be sedimentary environments under which the bottom water Nd isotope signature is not preserved by planktonic foraminifera. Tests to validate other core sites must be carried out before downcore records can be used to interpret palaeoceanographic changes.

Description: We present modern B/Ca core-top calibrations for the epifaunal benthic foraminifer Nuttallides umbonifera and the infaunal Oridorsalis umbonatus to test whether B/Ca values in these species can be used for the reconstruction of paleo-D[[CO3]2-]. O. umbonatus originated in the Late Cretaceous and remains extant, whereas N. umbonifera originated in the Eocene and is the closest extant relative to Nuttallides truempyi, which ranges from the Late Cretaceous through the Eocene. We measured B/Ca in both species in 35 Holocene sediment samples from the Atlantic, Pacific and Southern Oceans. B/Ca values in epifaunal N. umbonifera (~ 85-175 µmol/mol) are consistently lower than values reported for epifaunal Cibicidoides (Cibicides) wuellerstorfi (130-250 µmol/mol), though the sensitivity of D[[CO3]2-] on B/Ca in N. umbonifera (1.23 ± 0.15) is similar to that in C. wuellerstorfi (1.14 ± 0.048). In addition, we show that B/Ca values of paired N. umbonifera and its extinct ancestor, N. truempyi, from Eocene cores are indistinguishable within error. In contrast, both the B/Ca (35-85 µmol/mol) and sensitivity to D[[CO3]2-] (0.29 ± 0.20) of core-top O. umbonatus are considerably lower (as in other infaunal species), and this offset extends into the Paleocene. Thus the B/Ca of N. umbonifera and its ancestor can be used to reconstruct bottom water D[[CO3]2?], whereas O. umbonatus B/Ca appears to be buffered by porewater [[CO3]2-] and suited for constraining long-term drift in seawater B/Ca.

Description: Fluid mixing processes and thermal regimes within the Snowcap and Roman Ruins vent sites of the PACMANUS hydrothermal system, Papua New Guinea, were investigated using 3He/4He ratios from fluid inclusions within pyrite and anhydrite and the d18O signature of anhydrite. Depressed 3He/4He ratios of 0.2-6.91RA appear to be caused by significant atmospheric diffusive exchange, whilst He-Ne diffusive fractionation precludes correction using 20Ne. 40Ar/36Ar ratios of 295-310 are elevated above seawater, indicating the majority of argon is seawater derived but with a magmatic component. d18O anhydrite ratios are 6.5 per mil to 11 per mil for Snowcap and 6.4 per mil to 11.9 per mil for Roman Ruins. Using oxygen isotope fractionation factors for the anhydrite-water system, the temperatures calculated assuming isotopic equilibrium at depth are up to 100 °C cooler than fluid inclusion trapping temperatures. It is likely that anhydrite is precipitated rapidly, preventing d18O equilibration. By comparing new d18O values for anhydrite with corresponding published 87Sr/86Sr ratios, seawater is inferred to penetrate deep into the Snowcap system with little conductive heating. A simple fluid mixing model has been constructed whereby the differing venting styles can be explained by a plumbing system at depth which favors delivery of end-member hydrothermal fluid to the high temperature sites.

Description: Sulfide mineralogy and the contents and isotope compositions of sulfur were analyzed in a complete oceanic volcanic section from IODP Hole 1256D in the eastern Pacific, in order to investigate the role of microbes and their effect on the sulfur budget in altered upper oceanic crust. Basalts in the 800 m thick volcanic section are affected by a pervasive low-temperature background alteration and have mean sulfur contents of 530 ppm, reflecting loss of sulfur relative to fresh glass through degassing during eruption and alteration by seawater. Alteration halos along fractures average 155 ppm sulfur and are more oxidized, have high SO4/Sum S ratios (0.43), and lost sulfur through oxidation by seawater compared to host rocks. Although sulfur was lost locally, sulfur was subsequently gained through fixation of seawater-derived sulfur in secondary pyrite and marcasite in veins and in concentrations at the boundary between alteration halos and host rocks. Negative d34S[sulfide-S] values (down to -30 per mil) and low temperatures of alteration (down to ~40 °C) point to microbial reduction of seawater sulfate as the process resulting in local additions of sulfide-S. Mass balance calculations indicate that 15–20% of the sulfur in the volcanic section is microbially derived, with the bulk altered volcanic section containing 940 ppm S, and with d34S shifted to -6.0 per mil from the mantle value (0 per mil). The bulk volcanic section may have gained or lost sulfur overall. The annual flux of microbial sulfur into oceanic basement based on Hole 1256D is 3-4 * 10**10 mol S/yr, within an order of magnitude of the riverine sulfate source and the sedimentary pyrite sink. Results indicate a flux of bacterially derived sulfur that is fixed in upper ocean basement of 7-8 * 10**-8 mol/cm**-2/yr1 over 15 m.y. This is comparable to that in open ocean sediment sites, but is one to two orders of magnitude less than for ocean margin sediments. The global annual subduction of sulfur in altered oceanic basalt lavas based on Hole 1256D is 1.5-2.0 * 10**11 mol/yr, comparable to the subduction of sulfide in sediments, and could contribute to sediment-like sulfur isotope heterogeneities in the mantle.

Description: Calcium-isotope ratios (d44/42Ca) were measured in carbonate-rich sedimentary sections deposited during Oceanic Anoxic Events 1a (Early Aptian) and 2 (Cenomanian-Turonian). In sections from Resolution Guyot, Mid-Pacific Mountains; Coppitella, Italy; and the English Chalk at Eastbourne and South Ferriby, UK, a negative excursion in d44/42Ca of ~0.20 per mil and ~0.10 per mil is observed for the two events. These d44/42Ca excursions occur at the same stratigraphic level as the carbon-isotope excursions that define the events, but do not correlate with evidence for carbonate dissolution or lithological changes. Diagenetic and temperature effects on the calcium-isotope ratios can be discounted, leaving changes in global seawater composition as the most probable explanation for d44/42Ca changes in four different carbonate sections. An oceanic box model with coupled strontium- and calcium-isotope systems indicates that a global weathering increase is likely to be the dominant driver of transient excursions in calcium-isotope ratios. The model suggests that contributions from hydrothermal activity and carbonate dissolution are too small and short-lived to affect the oceanic calcium reservoir measurably. A modelled increase in weathering flux, on the order of three times the modern flux, combined with increased hydrothermal activity due to formation of the Ontong-Java Plateau (OAE1a) and Caribbean Plateau (OAE2), can produce trends in both calcium and strontium isotopes that match the signals recorded in the carbonate sections. This study presents the first major-element record of a weathering response to Oceanic Anoxic Events.

Description: Palynological data from offshore Costa Rica, allow us to investigate the relationship between dinoflagellate cyst assemblages and changes in regional oceanic primary productivity. From Miocene to Pleistocene, productivity at ODP Site 1039 was influenced by tectonic drift, as Site 1039 approached the continent, from the Equator to its current position at ~10°N. In addition, dinoflagellate abundance is modulated by regional productivity events, which modified primary productivity, as also indicated by available data on calcareous nannofossils, diatoms, TOC, and CaCO3 content. Five palynomorph intervals are defined. The early-late Miocene one, dominated by Batiacasphaera, represents relatively stable, productive oceanic conditions before the closure of the Indonesian and Panama Seaways. The late Miocene decrease in palynomorph recovery is related to the Carbonate Crash Event. The high abundance and diversity of the assemblages at the end of the late Miocene to early Pliocene indicate increased productivity related to the Global Biogenic Bloom, and a change in dominance from Batiacasphaera to Impagidinium to Nematosphaeropsis. The low abundance of the late Pliocene interval is related to El Niño-like conditions, and there is another change related to the disappearance of Batiacasphaera and dominance of Impagidinium, Nematosphaeropsis, and Operculodinium. The abundant Pleistocene assemblages represent increased marine productivity, and a high influx of continental palynomorphs and bissacate pollen, associated with the proximity of the Costa Rica Dome. Pleistocene dinoflagellates are characterized by Spiniferites and Selenopemphix, together with rare Impagidinium and Nematosphaeropsis.

Description: The mechanics of ocean circulation during the Late Cretaceous greenhouse interval remain contested (MacLeod and Hoope, 1992, doi:10.1130/0091-7613(1992)020〈0117:ETIBWB〉2.3.CO;2; Frank and Arthur, 1999, doi:10.1029/1998PA900017; MacLeod and Huber, 2001; Abramovich et al., doi:10.1029/2009PA001843; Isaza-Londono et al., doi:10.1029/2004PA001130; MacLeod et al., 2005, doi:10.1130/G21466.1), with the role of North Atlantic Deep Water in ocean circulation particularly debated: the relative warming of the North Atlantic during the termination of the greenhouse interval has been attributed to heat piracy from North Atlantic Deep Water formation (Isaza-Londono et al., doi:10.1029/2004PA001130; MacLeod et al., 2005, doi:10.1130/G21466.1), but the sources of Cretaceous deep water have been difficult to resolve. Nd isotopes as captured by seafloor sediments and expressed as epsilon-Nd(t) reflect the region in which the water mass was formed. Here we present epsilon-Nd(t) measurements from Cretaceous- to Palaeogene-aged sediments from four cores in the tropical North Atlantic. Before 69 Myr ago, we find extremely low epsilon-Nd(t) values of about -16, consistent with the presence of a warm, saline deep water mass formed in the low latitudes (MacLeod et al., 2008, doi:10.1130/G24999A.1; Jiménez Berrocoso et al., 2010, doi:10.1130/G31195.1). By 62 Myr ago, epsilon-Nd(t) values had risen to -11, similar to values reported from the northern North Atlantic over the past 65 million years, but lower than most contemporaneous values in the South Atlantic (Robinson et al., 2010, doi:10.1130/G31165.1) and Pacific oceans ((MacLeod et al., 2008, doi:10.1130/G24999A.1; Frank et al., 2005, doi:10.1029/2004PA001052 ). We therefore suggest that the epsilon-Nd(t) shift reflects the increasing influence of a northern-sourced water mass at this site, indicating the onset or intensification of deep- or intermediate-water formation in the North Atlantic 69 Myr ago. Our findings support the heat piracy model and imply that circulation patterns during the greenhouse interval were different from those of the subsequent relatively temperate interval.

Description: We analyzed sediment from Ocean Drilling Program (ODP) Site 1144 in the northern South China Sea to examine the weathering response of SE Asia to the strengthening of the East Asian Monsoon (EAM) since 14 ka. Our high-resolution record highlights the decoupling between continental chemical weathering, physical erosion and summer monsoon intensity. Mass accumulation rates, Ti/Ca, K/Rb, hematite/goethite and 87Sr/86Sr show sharp excursions from 11 to 8 ka, peaking at 10 ka. Clay minerals show a shorter-lived response with a higher kaolinite/(illite + chlorite) ratio at 10.7-9.5 ka. However, not all proxies show a clear response to environmental changes. Magnetic susceptibility rises sharply between 12 and 11 ka. Grain-size becomes finer from 14 to 10 ka and then coarsens until ~7 ka, but is probably controlled by bottom current flow and sealevel. Sr and Nd isotopes show that material is dominantly eroded from Taiwan with a lesser flux from Luzon, while clay mineralogy suggests that the primary sources during the Early Holocene were reworked via the shelf in the Taiwan Strait, rather than directly from Taiwan. Erosion was enhanced during monsoon strengthening and caused reworking of chemically weathered Pleistocene sediment largely from the now flooded Taiwan Strait, which was transgressed by ~8 ka, cutting off supply to the deep-water slope. None of the proxies shows an erosional response lasting until ~6 ka, when speleothem oxygen isotope records indicate the start of monsoon weakening. Although more weathered sediments were deposited from 11 to 8 ka when the monsoon was strong these are reworked and represent more weathering during the last glacial maximum (LGM) when the summer monsoon was weaker but the shelves were exposed.

Description: During the late Pliocene (~3 to 2.5 Ma), oceanic records of opal and C37 alkenone accumulation from around the world show a secular shift towards lower values in the high latitudes and higher values in the low and mid latitudes. These shifts are broadly coincident with the intensification of northern hemisphere glaciation and are suggestive of changes in export productivity, with potential implications for Pliocene atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations. The interpretation of a global latitudinal shift in productivity, however, requires testing because of the potential uncertainties associated with site to site comparisons of records that can be influenced by highly nonlinear processes associated with production, export, and preservation. Here, we assess the inferred Pliocene latitudinal productivity shift interpretation by presenting new records of C37 alkenone accumulation from Ocean Drilling Program (ODP) Site 982 in the North Atlantic and biotic assemblages (calcareous nannoplankton) from this site and ODP Site 846 in the eastern tropical Pacific. Our results corroborate the interpretation of C37 alkenone accumulation as a proxy for gross export productivity at these sites, indicating that large-scale productivity decreases at high latitudes and increases at tropical sites are recorded robustly. We conclude that the intensification of northern hemisphere glaciation during the late Pliocene was associated with a profound reorganisation of ocean biogeochemistry.

Description: The Wilkes and Aurora basins are large, low-lying sub-glacial basins that may cause areas of weakness in the overlying East Antarctic ice sheet. Previous work based on ice-rafted debris (IRD) provenance analyses found evidence for massive iceberg discharges from these areas during the late Miocene and Pliocene. Here we characterize the sediments shed from the inferred areas of weakness along this margin (94°E to 165°E) by measuring40Ar/39Ar ages of 292 individual detrital hornblende grains from eight marine sediment core locations off East Antarctica and Nd isotopic compositions of the bulk fine fraction from the same sediments. We further expand the toolbox for Antarctic IRD provenance analyses by exploring the application of 40Ar/39Ar ages of detrital biotites; biotite as an IRD tracer eliminates lithological biases imposed by only analyzing hornblendes and allows for characterization of samples with low IRD concentrations. Our data quadruples the number of detrital 40Ar/39Ar ages from this margin of East Antarctica and leads to the following conclusions: (1) Four main sectors between the Ross Sea and Prydz Bay, separated by ice drainage divides, are distinguishable based upon the combination of 40Ar/39Ar ages of detrital hornblende and biotite grains and the e-Nd of the bulk fine fraction; (2) 40Ar/39Ar biotite ages can be used as a robust provenance tracer for this part of East Antarctica; and (3) sediments shed from the coastal areas of the Aurora and Wilkes sub-glacial basins can be clearly distinguished from one another based upon their isotopic fingerprints.

Description: The sensitivity to temperature of Mg/Ca ratios in the shallow-infaunal benthic foraminifera Uvigerina spp. has been assessed. Core-top calibrations over ~1-20 °C show a range in sensitivity of 0.065-0.084 mmol/mol/°C but few data are available spanning the temperature range anticipated in deep-sea records over glacial-interglacial cycles. In contrast to epibenthic foraminiferal species, carbonate ion saturation appears not to affect Mg/Ca significantly. A method based on estimating the ratio of the temperature sensitivity of foraminiferal Mg/Ca to that of d18Ocalcite shows that sensitivity for Mg/Ca at the high end of the observed core-top range (~0.1 mmol/mol/°C) is required for consistency with LGM-Holocene differences in each property as constrained by independent proxy data. This is supported by a Mg/Ca record for Uvigerina spp. generated for the Southern Ocean over the past 440,000 years from Ocean Drilling Program Site 1123 (Chatham Rise, New Zealand). The record shows variability that correlates with climate oscillations. The LGM deep ocean temperature derived from the Mg/Ca record is -1.1 ± 0.3 °C. Transformation to temperature allows estimates to be made of changes in bottom water temperature and seawater d18O and comparison made with literature records. Analysis reveals a ~2.5-kyr lead in the record of temperature over calcite d18O and a longer lead over seawater d18O. This is a reflection of larger phase offsets at eccentricity periods; phase offsets at tilt and precession are within error zero.

Description: When comparing new sea surface temperature (SST) records between the western and eastern equatorial Pacific spanning the last 3.2 Ma, we found that the zonal temperature gradient over the entire tropical Pacific irreversibly increased by 3 to 4 °C from 2.2 to 2.0 Ma. Here, we suggest a pronounced increase in atmospheric circulation from a weak to a strong zonal Walker circulation (WC) during the early Pleistocene. Evidence from other oceanic areas also suggests a strengthening in the meridional Hadley circulation (HC) during the same time period. Therefore, we also suggest that the invigoration of both atmospheric circulation patterns was intimately coupled during the Plio-Pleistocene transition, and likely linked to a shrinkage in the zonal extension of the tropical to subtropical warm-sphere associated with a prominent increase in the pole to equator temperature gradient. Our conclusion refutes assumptions that the intensification of atmospheric circulation in the tropics and subtropics significantly contributed to the initiation of continental ice sheet formation at high latitudes, since the onset of extensive Northern Hemisphere Glaciation (NHG) occurred ~2.75 Ma ago, in the late Pliocene. Instead, the development of a stronger atmospheric circulation ~2.2-2.0 Ma ago could have significantly contributed to the Plio-Pleistocene climate cooling.

Description: Nd isotopes are useful tracers for paleoceanography due to the short Nd residence time in seawater and the large differences between the isotopic signatures of various geological reservoirs. Therefore, eNd variations reflect the geological history of individual oceanic basins. Using a differential dissolution technique, which extracts Nd isotopes of seawater trapped in MnO2 coatings and carbonates in marine sediment, we measured almost two hundred samples from ODP Sites 758 and 757 in the Northern Bay of Bengal covering the last 4 Ma. For the first time, we have shown a covariation between epsilon-Nd and d18O over at least the last 800 ka. We also show that from 4 Ma to 2.6 Ma, epsilon-Nd is almost constant and starts to fluctuate at 2.6 Ma when northern glaciations increased. From 2.6 Ma to 1 Ma the fluctuation period is close to 40 ka while from 1 Ma to present it is dominantly 100 ka. We attribute these findings to mixing between Himalayan river water (that ultimately originates as Indian summer monsoon rain) and normal Bay of Bengal seawater. Previous studies on seawater, using epsilon-Nd, d18O analyzed on planktonic foraminifera and sedimentary data, can be integrated into this model. A simple quantitative binary mixing model suggests that the summer monsoon rain was more intense during interglacial than glacial periods. During last glacial episode, the monsoon trajectory was deviated to the east. At a large scale, the Indian monsoon is fully controlled by the variations in Northern Hemisphere climate but with a complex response function to this forcing. Our study clearly establishes the large potential of Nd isotope data to evaluate the hydrological river regime during the Quaternary and its relationship with climate fluctuations, particularly when the sediment archive is sampled close to sediment sources.

Description: In situ secondary ionization mass spectrometry (SIMS) analyses of oxygen isotopes in authigenic calcite veins were obtained from an active thrust fault system drilled at Ocean Drilling Program (ODP) Site 892 (44°40.4'N, 125°07.1'W) along the Cascadia subduction margin. The average d18OPDB value of all samples is -9.9 per mil and the values are the lowest of any measured in active accretionary prisms. Ranges in individual veins can be as much as 19.6 per mil. There is an isotopic stratigraphy related to the structural stratigraphy. Mean isotope values in the hanging wall, thrust, and footwall are -14.4 per mil, -9.5 per mil, and -5.2 per mil, respectively. Several veins and crosscutting vein sequences show a general trend from lower to higher d18O values over time. Isotopic and textural data indicate several veins formed by a crack-seal mechanism and growth into open fractures. The best explanation for the strong 18O depletions is periodic rapid flow from 2-3 km deeper in the prism. Relatively narrow isotopic ranges for most veins suggest that fluids were derived from a similar source depth for each episode of fluid pulse and calcite crystallization. Structural and mass balance considerations are consistent with a record preserved in the veins of ten to hundreds of thousands of years. The fluid pulses may relate to periodic large earthquake events such as those recognized in the paleoseismicity records from the Cascadia margin.

Description: Neodymium isotopes of fish debris from two sites on Demerara Rise, spanning ~4.5 m.y. of deposition from the early Cenomanian to just before ocean anoxic event 2 (OAE2) (Cenomanian-Turonian transition), suggest a circulation-controlled nutrient trap in intermediate waters of the western tropical North Atlantic that could explain continuous deposition of organic-rich black shales for as many as ~15 m.y. (Cenomanian-early Santonian). Unusually low Nd isotopic data (epsilon-Nd(t) ~-11 to ~-16) on Demerara Rise during the Cenomanian are confirmed, but the shallower site generally exhibits higher and more variable values. A scenario in which southwest-flowing Tethyan and/or North Atlantic waters overrode warm, saline Demerara bottom water explains the isotopic differences between sites and could create a dynamic nutrient trap controlled by circulation patterns in the absence of topographic barriers. Nutrient trapping, in turn, would explain the ~15 m.y. deposition of black shales through positive feedbacks between low oxygen and nutrient-rich bottom waters, efficient phosphate recycling, transport of nutrients to the surface, high productivity, and organic carbon export to the seafloor. This nutrient trap and the correlation seen previously between high Nd and organic carbon isotopic values during OAE2 on Demerara Rise suggest that physical oceanographic changes could be components of OAE2, one of the largest perturbations to the global carbon cycle in the past 150 m.y.

Description: Bulk sediment chemistry from three Chilean continental margin Ocean Drilling Program sites constrains regional continental erosion over the past 30,000 years. Sediments from thirteen rivers that drain the (mostly igneous) Andes and the (mostly metamorphic) Coast Range, along with existing rock chemistry datasets, define terrestrial provenance for the continental margin sediments. Andean river sediments have high Mg/Al relative to Coast-Range river sediments. Near 36°S, marine sediments have high-Mg/Al (i.e. more Andean) sources during the last glacial period, and lower-Mg/Al (less Andean) sources during the Holocene. Near 41°S a Ti-rich source, likely from coast-range igneous intrusions, is prevalent during Holocene time, whereas high-Mg/Al Andean sources are more prevalent during the last glacial period. We infer that there is a dominant ice-sheet control of sediment sources. At 36°S, Andean-sourced sediment decreased as Andean mountain glaciers retreated after ~17.6 ka, coincident with local oceanic warming and southward retreat of the Patagonian Forest and, by inference, westerly winds. At 41°S Andean sediment dominance peaks and then rapidly declines at ~19 ka, coincident with local oceanic warming and the earliest deglacial sea-level rise. We hypothesize that this decreased flux of Andean material in the south is related to rapid retreat of the marine-based portion of the Patagonian Ice Sheet in response to global sea-level rise, as the resulting flooding of the southern portion of the Central Valley created a sink for Andean sediments in this region. Reversal of the decreasing deglacial Mg/Al trend at 41°S from 14.5 to 13.0 ka is consistent with a brief re-advance of the Patagonian ice sheet coincident with the Antarctic Cold Reversal.

Description: The Antarctic Polar Front is an important biogeochemical divider in the Southern Ocean. Laminated diatom mat deposits record episodes of massive flux of the diatom Thalassiothrix antarctica beneath the Antarctic Polar Front and provide a marker for tracking the migration of the Front through time. Ocean Drilling Program Sites 1091, 1093 and 1094 are the only deep piston cored record hitherto sampled from the sediments of the circumpolar biogenic opal belt. Mapping of diatom mat deposits between these sites indicates a glacial-interglacial front migration of up to 6 degrees of latitude in the early/mid Pleistocene. The mid-Pleistocene transition marks a stepwise minimum 7° northward migration of the locus of the Polar Front sustained for about 450 kyr until an abrupt southward return to a locus similar to its modern position and further south than any mid-Pleistocene locus. This interval from a "900 ka event" that saw major cooling of the oceans and a d13C minimum through to the 424 ka Mid-Brunhes Event at Termination V is also seemingly characterised by 1) sustained decreased carbonate in the sub-tropical south Atlantic, 2) reduced strength of Antarctic deep meridional circulation, 3) lower interglacial temperatures and lower interglacial atmospheric CO2 levels (by some 30 per mil) than those of the last 400 kyr, evidencing less complete deglaciation. This evidence is consistent with a prolonged period lasting 450 kyr of only partial ventilation of the deep ocean during interglacials and suggests that the mechanisms highlighted by recent hypotheses linking mid-latitude atmospheric conditions to the extent of deep ocean ventilation and carbon sequestration over glacial-interglacial cycles are likely in operation during the longer time scale characteristic of the mid-Pleistocene transition. The cooling that initiated the "900 ka event" may have been driven by minima in insolation amplitude related to eccentricity modulation of precession that also affected low latitude climates as marked by threshold changes in the African monsoon system. The major thresholds in earth system behaviour through the mid-Pleistocene transition were likely governed by an interplay of the 100 kyr and 400 kyr eccentricity modulation of precession.

Description: An understanding of sediment redox conditions across the Paleocene-Eocene thermal maximum (PETM) (~55 Ma) is essential for evaluating changes in processes that control deep-sea oxygenation, as well as identifying the mechanisms responsible for driving the benthic foraminifera extinction. Sites cored on the flanks of Walvis Ridge (Ocean Drilling Program Leg 208, Sites 1262, 1266, and 1263) allow us to examine changes in bottom and pore water redox conditions across a ~2 km depth transect of deep-sea sediments of PETM age recovered from the South Atlantic. Here we present measurements of the concentrations of redox-sensitive trace metals manganese (Mn) and uranium (U) in bulk sediment as proxies for redox chemistry at the sediment-water interface and below. All three Walvis Ridge sites exhibit bulk Mn enrichment factors (EF) ranging between 4 and 12 prior to the warming, values at crustal averages (Mn EF = 1) during the warming interval, and a return to pre-event values during the recovery period. U enrichment factors across the PETM remains at crustal averages (U EF = 1) at Site 1262 (deep) and Site 1266 (intermediate depth). U enrichment factors at Site 1263 (shallow) peaked at 5 immediately prior to the PETM and dropped to values near crustal averages during and after the event. All sites were lower in dissolved oxygen content during the PETM. Before and after the PETM, the deep and intermediate sites were oxygenated, while the shallow site was suboxic. Our geochemical results indicate that oxygen concentrations did indeed drop during the PETM but not sufficiently to cause massive extinction of benthic foraminifera.

Description: Marine biological productivity has been invoked as a possible climate driver during the early Paleogene through its potential influence on atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations. However, the relationship of export productivity (the flux of organic carbon (C) from the surface ocean to the deep ocean) to organic C burial flux (the flux of organic C from the deep ocean that is buried in marine sediments) is not well understood. We examine the various components involved with atmosphere-to-ocean C transfer by reconstructing early Paleogene carbonate and silica production (using carbonate and silica mass accumulation rates (MARs)); export productivity (using biogenic barium (bio-Ba) MARs); organic C burial flux (using reactive phosphorus (P) MARs); redox conditions (using uranium and manganese contents); and the fraction of organic C buried relative to export productivity (using reactive P to bio-Ba ratios). Our investigations concentrate on Paleocene/Eocene sections of Sites 689/690 from Maud Rise and Site 738 from Kerguelen Plateau. In both regions, export productivity, organic C burial flux, and the fraction of organic C buried relative to export productivity decreased from the Paleocene/early Eocene to the middle Eocene. A shift is indicated from an early Paleogene two-gyre circulation in which nutrients were not efficiently recycled to the surface via upwelling in these regions, to a circulation more like the present day with efficient recycling of nutrients to the surface ocean. Export productivity was enhanced for Kerguelen Plateau relative to Maud Rise throughout the early Paleogene, possibly due to internal waves generated by the plateau regardless of gyre circulation.

Description: Long eccentricity (400-kyr) cycles in carbon isotope records from the Pacific and Atlantic oceans and the Mediterranean sea of the past 5.0 Ma are compared. All records show maximum d13C values (d13Cmax) at eccentricity minima during the Pliocene, but this relationship obscured in the Pleistocene after ~1.6 Ma in particular for the open ocean deep-water d13C records. Since a clear anti-phase relationship was set up between oceanic d18O and d13C in the 100-kyr band from this time, we attribute the obscured 400-kyr signal to a major change in the oceanic carbon reservoir probably associated with restructure of the Southern Ocean. A similar change occurred in the Miocene at 13.9 Ma when the 400-kyr cyclicity in d13C records flattened out together with a drastic cooling and Antarctic ice-sheet expansion. A remarkable exception is the Mediterranean surface water d13C record, which remained paced by the long-term eccentricity cycle throughout the Pliocene and Pleistocene, suggesting a low-latitude climatic origin of the 400-kyr signal that is independent of glacial-interglacial forcing. Since the Earth is currently passing through an eccentricity minimum, it is crucial to understand the nature of the d13Cmax events.

Description: The astronomical-tuned time scale is rapidly extended into the Paleogene but, due to the existence of an Eocene gap, different tuning options had to be presented for the Paleocene. These options differ both in number and tuning of ~405-kyr eccentricity related cycles and are only partially consistent with recalculated 40Ar/39Ar constraints for the Cretaceous/Paleogene (K/Pg) and Paleocene/Eocene (P/E) boundaries. In this paper, we evaluate the cyclostratigraphic interpretation of records from ODP Leg 198 and 208 sites, and the Zumaia section to solve the problem of the different tuning options. We found that the interval between the K/Pg boundary and the early Late Paleocene biotic event (ELPE) comprises 17 instead of 16 * ~405-kyr eccentricity related cycles as previously proposed, while the entire Paleocene contains 25 * ~405-kyr cycles. Starting from 40Ar/39Ar age constraints for the K/Pg boundary, a new tuning to 405-kyr eccentricity is presented for the Paleocene and earliest Eocene, which results in ages of ~66.0 and ~ 56.0 Ma for the K/Pg and P/E boundaries, respectively. This tuning introduces considerable differences in age for a number of nannofossil events at ODP Sites 1209 and 1262 in the interval between 61 and 63 Ma, but eliminates large and abrupt changes in the seafloor spreading rate. The tuning seems further consistent with recalculated 40Ar/39Ar ages for ash layer -17 of early Eocene age. However, despite this apparent consistency with existing radio-isotopic constraints, an alternative 405-kyr younger or, less likely, older tuning cannot be excluded at this stage.

Description: We measured oxygen isotopes and Mg/Ca ratios in the surface-dwelling planktonic foraminifer Globigerinoides ruber (white s.s.) and the thermocline dweller Pulleniatina obliquiloculata to investigate upper ocean spatial variability in the Indo-Pacific Warm Pool (IPWP). We focused on three critical time intervals: the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM; 18-21.5 ka), the early Holocene (8-9 ka), and the late Holocene (0-2 ka). Our records from 24 stations in the South China Sea, Timor Sea, Indonesian seas, and western Pacific indicate overall dry and cool conditions in the IPWP during the LGM with a low thermal gradient between surface and thermocline waters. During the early Holocene, sea surface temperatures increased by ~3°C over the entire region, indicating intensification of the IPWP. However, in the eastern Indian Ocean (Timor Sea), the thermocline gradually shoaled from the LGM to early Holocene, reflecting intensification of the subsurface Indonesian Throughflow (ITF). Increased surface salinity in the South China Sea during the Holocene appears related to northward displacement of the monsoonal rain belt over the Asian continent together with enhanced influx of saltier Pacific surface water through the Luzon Strait and freshwater export through the Java Sea. Opening of the freshwater portal through the Java Sea in the early Holocene led to a change in the vertical structure of the ITF from surface- to thermocline-dominated flow and to substantial freshening of Timor Sea thermocline waters.

Description: Statistical analysis of X-ray fluorescence data acquired during Leg 135 indicates that this instrument produces data of comparable precision to good land-based laboratories. We also examined contamination of certain elements caused by crushing during the use of the tungsten carbide apparatus. Although the concentrations of most elements are not altered during crushing, the powders prepared on the ship should not be used in subsequent studies where key elements of the investigation include W, Co, Ta, Pb, and low levels of Nb.

Description: New Pb, Sr, and Nd isotope data are presented for 64 samples from the six backarc sites drilled during Leg 135. Systematic changes in Pb and Sr compositions illustrate significant isotopic variations between and within sites as well as provide two key pieces of information. First, a recent influx of asthenosphere with Indian Ocean mantle affinities has occurred and has successfully displaced older "Pacific" asthenosphere from the mantle underlying the backarc region. Second, clear evidence exists for mixing between these two asthenospheric end-members and at least one "arc-like" component. The latter was not the same as most material currently erupting in the Tofua Arc, but it must have had a more radiogenic Pb-isotope signature, perhaps similar to rocks analyzed from the islands of Tafahi, and Niuatoputapu. A comparison between the isotopic variations and the tectonic setting of the drill sites reveals consistent and important information regarding the mantle dynamics beneath the evolving backarc basin. We propose a model in which the source of upwelling magmas changes from Pacific to Indian Ocean asthenosphere with the propagation of seafloor spreading, a model with important implications for the rate of mantle influx into this region. Although the chemistries of backarc magmas have been profoundly influenced by this process, an additional consequence is the advection of Indian Ocean asthenosphere into the sub-arc mantle source. The isotopic compositions of arc rocks from the vicinity have been reevaluated on the basis of the proposed mantle advection model. We suggest that the slab-derived flux of trace elements into the arc wedge has remained relatively uniform with time (i.e., ~40 Ma), so that the change in arc chemistry results from mantle source substitution, rather than from differences in the composition of the downgoing plate.

Description: New major, trace element, and isotope data (Pb, Sr, and Nd) reveal an impressive compositional variation in the basalts recovered from Site 834. Major element compositions span almost the entire range observed in basalts from the modern axial systems of the Lau Basin, and variations are consistent with low-pressure fractionation of a mid-ocean-ridge-basalt (MORB)-like parent, in which plagioclase crystallization has been somewhat suppressed. Trace element compositions deviate from MORB in all but one unit (Unit 7) and show enrichments in large-ion-lithophile elements (LILEs) relative to high-field-strength elements (HFSEs) more typically associated with island-arc magmas. The Pb-isotope ratios define linear trends that extend from the field of Pacific MORB to highly radiogenic values similar to those observed in rocks from the northernmost islands of the Tofua Arc. The Sr-isotope compositions also show significant variation, and these too project from radiogenic values back into the field for Pacific MORB. The variations in key trace element and isotopic features are consistent with magma mixing between two relatively mafic melts: one represented by Pacific MORB, and the other by a magma similar to those erupted on 'Eua when it was part of the original Tongan arc, or perhaps members of the Lau Volcanic Group (LVG). Based on our model, the most radiogenic compositions (Units 2 and 8) represent approximately 50:50 mixtures of these MORB and arc end-members. Magma mixing requires that both components are simultaneously available, and implies that melts have not shown a compositional progression from arc-like to MORB-like with extension at this locality. Rather, it is apparent that essentially pristine MORB can erupt as one of the earliest products of backarc initiation. Indeed, repetition of isotopic and trace element signatures with depth suggests that eruptions have been triggered by periodic injections of fresh MORB melts into the source regions of these magmas. The slow and almost amagmatic extension of the original arc complex envisaged to explain the observed chemistry is also consistent with the horst-and-graben topography of the western side of the Lau Basin. Given the similarities between basalts erupted at the modern Lau Basin spreading centers and MORB from the Indian Ocean, the overwhelming evidence for involvement of mantle similar to Pacific MORB in the petrogenesis of basalts from Site 834 is a new and important observation. It indicates that the original arc was underlain by asthenospheric material derived from the Pacific mantle convection cell, and that this has somehow been replaced by Indian Ocean MORB during the last ~5.5 Ma.

Description: We use Nomarski differential interference contrast imaging to reveal the wealth of complex detail in plagioclase zoning for selected samples from Sites 834, 839, and 841. All sites contain some plagioclase with the very complex internal core zoning, convolute zoning, or very fine-scale euhedral oscillatory zoning of the sort generally considered typical of island-arc volcanic rocks. Plagioclase with contrasted zoning styles may coexist within a single lithologic unit or even within a single thin section. Especially notable is the presence of scattered plagioclase phenocrysts with complex zoning throughout Unit 7 in Hole 834B, which in other respects is relatively uniform in composition and appears to have had little or no differential sorting of crystals and liquid. Although our study is by no means comprehensive, it is sufficient to indicate that magmatic conditions have been variable during crystallization of these rocks, and mixing or at least minor contamination may be required to explain some of the relations observed. By analogy with experimental studies, it is possible that variations in water content, either over time or within different parts of a chamber or conduit system, have contributed to the observed contrasts in zoning.

Description: The backarc glasses recovered during Ocean Drilling Program Leg 135 are unique among submarine tholeiitic glasses with respect to their oxygen fugacity and sulfur concentrations. Unlike mid-ocean-ridge basalt glasses, fO2 in these samples (inferred from ratios Fe3+/Fe2+) is high and variable, and S variations (90-1140 ppm) are not coupled with FeO concentration. Strong correlations occur between the alkali and alkaline-earth elements and both fO2 (positive correlations) and S concentrations (negative correlations). Correlations between fO2 and various trace elements are strongest for those elements with a known affinity for hydrous fluids (perhaps produced during slab dehydration), suggesting the presence of a hydrous fluid with high fO2 and high alkali and alkaline earth element concentrations in the Lau Basin mantle. Concentrations of S and fO2 are strongly correlated; high fO2 samples are characterized by low S in addition to high alkali and alkaline earth element concentrations. The negative correlations between S and these trace elements are not consistent with incompatible behavior of S during crystallization. Mass balance considerations indicate that the S concentrations cannot result simply from mixing between low-S and high-S sources. Furthermore, there is no relationship between S and other trace elements or isotope ratios that might indicate that the S variations reflect mixing processes. The S variations more likely reflect the fact that when silicate coexists with an S-rich vapor phase the solubility of S in the silicate melt is a function of fO2 and is at a minimum at the fO2 conditions recorded by these glasses. The absence of Fe-sulfides and the high and variable vesicle contents are consistent with the idea that S concentrations reflect silicate-vapor equilibria rather than silicate-sulfide equilibria (as in MORB). The low S contents of some samples, therefore, reflect the high fO2 of the supra-subduction zone environment rather than a low-S source component.

Description: New petrographic and compositional data were reported for 143 samples of core recovered from Sites 832 and 833 during Ocean Drilling Program (ODP) Leg 134. Site 832 is located in the center and Site 833 is on the eastern edge of the North Aoba Basin, in the central part of the New Hebrides Island Arc. This basin is bounded on the east (Espiritu Santo and Malakula islands) and west (Pentecost and Maewo islands) by uplifted volcano-sedimentary ridges associated with collision of the d'Entrecasteaux Zone west of the arc. The currently active Central Belt volcanic front extends through the center of this basin and includes the shield volcanoes of Aoba, Ambrym, and Santa Maria islands. The oldest rocks recovered by drilling are the lithostratigraphic Unit VII Middle Miocene volcanic breccias in Hole 832B. Lava clasts are basaltic to andesitic, and the dominant phenocryst assemblage is plagioclase + augite + orthopyroxene + olivine. These clasts characteristically contain orthopyroxene, and show a low to medium K calc-alkaline differentiation trend. They are tentatively correlated with poorly documented Miocene calc-alkaline lavas and intrusives on adjacent Espiritu Santo Island, although this correlation demands that the measured K-Ar of 5.66 Ma for one clast is too young, due to alteration and Ar loss. Lava clasts in the Hole 832B Pliocene-Pleistocene sequence are mainly ankaramite or augite-rich basalt and basaltic andesite; two of the most evolved andesites have hornblende phenocrysts. These lavas vary from medium- to high-K compositions and are derived from a spectrum of parental magmas for which their LILE and HFSE contents show a broad inverse correlation with SiO2 contents. We hypothesize that this spectrum results from partial melting of an essentially similar mantle source, with the low-SiO2 high HFSE melts derived by lower degrees of partial melting probably at higher pressures than the high SiO2, low HFSE magmas. This same spectrum of compositions occurs on the adjacent Central Chain volcanoes of Aoba and Santa Maria, although the relatively high-HFSE series is known only from Aoba. Late Pliocene to Pleistocene lava breccias in Hole 833B contain volcanic clasts including ankaramite and augite + olivine + plagioclase-phyric basalt and rare hornblende andesite. These clasts are low-K compositions with flat REE patterns and have geochemical affinities quite different from those recovered from the central part of the basin (Hole 832B). Compositionally very similar lavas occur on Merelava volcano, 80 km north of Site 833, which sits on the edge of the juvenile Northern (Jean Charcot) Trough backarc basin that has been rifting the northern part of the New Hebrides Island Arc since 2-3 Ma. The basal sedimentary rocks in Hole 833B are intruded by a series of Middle Pliocene plagioclase + augite +/- olivine-phyric sills with characteristically high-K evolved basalt to andesite compositions, transitional to shoshonite. These are compositionally correlated with, though ~3 m.y. older than, the high-HFSE series described from Aoba. The calc-alkaline clasts in Unit VII of Hole 832B, correlated with similar lavas of Espiritu Santo Island further west, presumably were erupted before subduction polarity reversal perhaps 6-10 Ma. All other samples are younger than subduction reversal and were generated above the currently subduction slab. The preponderance in the North Aoba Basin and adjacent Central Chain islands of relatively high-K basaltic samples, some with transitional alkaline compositions, may reflect a response to collision of the d'Entrecasteaux Zone with the arc some 2-4 Ma. This may have modified the thermal structure of the subduction zone, driving magma generation processes to deeper levels than are present normally along the reminder of the New Hebrides Island Arc.

Description: This paper discusses the Paleobathymetric and paleoenvironmental history of the New Hebrides Island Arc and North d'Entrecasteaux Ridge during Cenozoic time based on benthic foraminiferal and sedimentological data. Oligocene and Pliocene to Pleistocene benthic foraminiferal assemblages from Sites 827, 828, 829, and 832 of Ocean Drilling Program (ODP) Leg 134 (Vanuatu) are examined by means of Q-mode factor analysis. The results of this analysis recognize the following bathymetrically significant benthic foraminiferal biofacies: (1) Globocassidulina subglobosa biofacies and Bulimina aculeata-Bolivinita quadrilatera biofacies representing the upper bathyal zone (600-1500 m); (2) Gavelinopsis praegeri-Cibicides wuellerstorfi biofacies, indicating the Pacific Intermediate Water (water depth between 1500 and 2400 m); (3) Tosaia hanzawai-Globocassidulina muloccensis biofacies, Valvulineria gunjii biofacies, and the Melonis barleeanus-Melonis sphaeroides biofacies, which characterize the lower bathyal zone; (4) the Nuttallides umbonifera biofacies, which characterizes the interval between the lysocline (approximately 3500 m) and the carbonate compensation depth (approximately 4500 m); and (5) the Rhabdammina abyssorum biofacies representing the abyssal zone below the carbonate compensation depth. Benthic foraminiferal patterns are used to construct Paleobathymetric and paleogeographic profiles of the New Hebrides Island Arc and North d'Entrecasteaux Ridge for the following age boundaries: late Miocene/Pliocene, early/late Pliocene, Pliocene/Pleistocene, and Pleistocene/Holocene.

Description: In the cores obtained during Leg 134 of the Ocean Drilling Program, radiolarians occur intermittently and usually in a poor state of preservation, apparently as a result of the region having been at or near the boundary between the equatorial current system and the south-central Pacific water mass during most of the Cenozoic. A few well-preserved assemblages provide a record of the Quaternary forms, and some displaced middle and lower Eocene clasts preserve a record of radiolarians near that subepochal boundary. There are less satisfactory records of middle Miocene and early Miocene to late Oligocene forms.

Description: We undertook a quantitative study of Thecosomata shells (pelagic gastropods) and their remains in Quaternary foraminiferal oozes deposited on the tilted calcareous platform of the Bougainville Guyot (Hole 831 A), and in the late Quaternary volcanic siltstones, claystones and sandy interbeds on the upper forearc slope of the central New Hebrides Island Arc (Hole 830A). The distribution of the species is based on the identification of adult shells, juvenile stages, protoconchs, and characteristic shell fragments. By studying thecosomatous shells using a scanning electron microscope (SEM), we were able to specify the fine microstructure of the coiled Limacina inflata and compare it with the rod-type crossed-lamellar structure of some other Limacina species, as well as with the helical structure of the Cavoliniidae.

Description: In-situ proton-microprobe analyses are presented for glasses, plagioclases, pyroxenes, olivines, and spinels in eleven samples from Sites 834-836, 839, and 841 (vitrophyric rhyolite), plus a Tongan dacite. Elements analyzed are Mn, Ni, Cu, Zn, Ga, Rb, Sr, Y, Zr, Pb, and Sn (in spinels only). The data are used to calculate two sets of partition coefficients, one set based on the ratio of element in mineral/element in coexisting glass. The second set of coefficients, thought to be more robust, is corrected by application of the Rayleigh fractionation equations, which requires additional use of modal data. Data are presented for phenocryst core-rim phases and microphenocryst-groundmass phases from a few samples. Comparison with published coefficients reveals an overall consistency with those presented here, but with some notable anomalies. Examples are relatively high Zr values for pyroxenes and abnormally low Mn values in olivines and clinopyroxenes from Site 839 lavas. Some anomalies may reflect kinetic effects, but interpretation of the coefficients is complicated, especially in olivines from Sites 836 and 839, by possible crystal-liquid disequilibrium resulting from mixing processes.

Description: Calcareous nannofossils were examined from six sites drilled within the Lau Basin during Ocean Drilling Program Leg 135. These sites lie in a transect roughly west to east across the basin from the Lau Ridge remnant arc to near the active spreading center. The main objective of the biostratigraphic studies was to date the base of the sedimentary section, immediately overlying basement at each site. Material from all these sites yielded calcareous nannofossils. Site 834, which is closest to the Lau Ridge, yielded floras from Holocene to possible late Miocene age. Site 836, furthest from the remnant arc, produced nannofossils of middle Pleistocene age at the base of the sedimentary section. Reworked material was noted from all sites but caused correlation problems only at Site 835. One new taxon, Discoaster ono, is described from Pliocene sediments.

Description: Diverse and well-preserved planktonic foraminifers were recovered from six sites (834-839) drilled in the Lau Basin. Planktonic faunas from the Tongan Platform sites varied from those of the Lau Basin sites by being less well preserved (Site 840) to being very poorly preserved and very sparse (Site 841); at Site 841 most samples were barren. All sites penetrated a volcaniclastic sequence in which thick ash beds were encountered; foraminifer populations within the ash beds were often very small, making it difficult to obtain biostratigraphic data. No hiatuses were encountered in the upper Miocene to Pleistocene sections of the Lau Basin, but a possible break occurs at Site 840 on the Tongan Platform. Site 834 penetrated through a Quaternary-Pliocene sequence overlying basaltic basement, and topmost Miocene (Zone N17B) sediments interbedded within the volcanic sequence. Site 835 penetrated into the lower Pliocene (Zones N19 to N19-20). Site 836 penetrated the shortest section, with Zone N22 {Globorotalia (Truncorotalia) crassaformis hessi Subzone) directly overlying basalts. Site 837 penetrated into the basal part of Zone N22 (Globigerinoides quadrilobatus fistulosus Subzone) overlying basalt. Site 838 failed to encounter basalts, with the oldest sediment being from Zone N22 (Globigerinoides quadrilobatus fistulosus Subzone). Site 839, within the same basin as Site 838, located Zone N22 (Globigerinoides quadrilobatus fistulosus Subzone) sediments directly overlying igneous basement. Site 840 penetrated into the upper Miocene Zone N17A without encountering any major unconformity. Site 841, studied mainly from core-catcher samples, penetrated a Quaternary to questionable upper Miocene sequence that was in fault contact with middle Miocene (Zones N8 to N9) sediments. For the Lau Basin sites, reworking was encountered only in Sites 834 and 835. Site 834 was drilled adjacent to the Lau Ridge, on which are developed numerous reef al and shallow-water environments, where erosional conditions could have been expected during sea-level lowstands. Site 835 was drilled in a narrow basin that has been remote from these erosional influences; slumping and erosion of material from the adjacent basin slopes appears to have been the source of the reworking. For the Tongan Platform sites, reworking was observed only in the lower part of the upper Miocene section at Site 841, where late Eocene larger foraminifers are present in conglomerates and grits. The presence of Globorotalia (Globorotalia) multicamerata and small specimens of Sphaeroidinellopsis spp. in the Pleistocene of Site 840 may indicate reworking, but this is not clear. Unit I, which marks a reduction in volcanic activity in the Lau Basin, ranges in age from the lower part of Zone N22 (Globigerinoides quadrilobatus fistulosus Subzone) at Sites 834 and 835, to within Zone N22 (Globorotalia crassaformis hessi Subzone) at Sites 836 to 838, and within the upper part of Zone N22 (Bolliella praeadamsi Subzone) at Site 839. Units II and III are generally represented by thick to very thick ash beds, which generally contain low-diversity and often poorly preserved assemblages. Igneous sources seem to have remained important contributors of sediment up to the present day.

Description: Ocean Drilling Program Leg 135 drilled at two sites on the Tonga Ridge. Calcareous nannofossils recovered at Site 840 on the Tonga Ridge date the sedimentary sequence as late Pleistocene or Holocene (CN15) through late Miocene (CN9) in age. A hiatus occurs in the mid Pliocene. Site 841 in the Tonga Trench yielded a sedimentary sequence with nannofossils from middle Pleistocene Subzone CN14b through the middle or late Eocene Subzones CP14a-CP15b overlying a rhyolitic volcanic basement. Part of the Eocene interval contains the shallow-water nannofossil taxa Braarudosphaera, Micrantholithus, and Pemma. A major unconformity separates lower Oligocene Zone CP 16 from lower middle Miocene Zone CN4 strata.

Description: The average total organic carbon (TOC) content obtained after Rock-Eval/TOC analysis of 156 sediment samples from the eight sites cored during Leg 135 is 0.05%. Hence, the TOC content of Leg 135 sediments is extremely low. The organic matter that is present in these samples is probably mostly reworked and oxidized material. Ten sediment samples were selected for extraction and analysis by gas chromatography and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. Very low amounts of extractable hydrocarbons were obtained and some aspects of the biomarker distributions suggest that these hydrocarbons are not representative of the organic matter indigenous to the samples. A sample of an oil seep from Pili, Tongatapu was also analyzed. The seep is a biodegraded, mature oil that shows many characteristics in common with previously published analyses of oil seeps from Tongatapu. Biomarker evidence indicates that its source is a mature, marine carbonate of probable Late Cretaceous-Early Tertiary age. The source rock responsible for the Tongatapu oil seeps remains unknown.

Description: Paleomagnetic and rock-magnetic investigations of basalts from Hole 834B in the Lau backarc basin and of sediments from Holes 841A and 841B at the Tonga Ridge are reported. Three groups of blocking temperatures in the basalts suggest the presence of at least three magnetic phases: pure magnetite, a Ti-poor titanomagnetite, and a Ti-rich phase. The drill-string-induced remanence in the basalts is typically between three and six times the original normal remanent magnetization intensity, but it is mostly removed by alternating-field (AF) cleaning in 5 mT. Volume susceptibility values range from 0.04 * 10**-3 to 4 * 10**-3 cgs. The modified Q-ratio J5/sus ranges from 0.5 to 10. The drill-string-induced remanence behaves different in the two sediment cores from Holes 841A and 841B, which may be the result of differences in the sediment or caused by the different drilling equipment used. The AF-cleaned inclinations of the sediment in Holes 841A and 841B suggest a slight flattening with increasing depth (up to 6° under a load of 400 m of sediment) to be present. This flattening is likely to be caused by the differential rotation of detrital particles under compaction during diagenesis.

Description: Detailed paleomagnetic investigations are reported for 283 specimens, sampled from three closely spaced Ocean Drilling Program Leg 135 cores from the Lau Basin. These specimens cover three rather similar records of the reversed Cobb Mountain short polarity event, having an age of about 1.12 m.y. On the basis of a very detailed subsampling every 0.6 cm, we found that the transition times for the Cobb Mountain geomagnetic polarity event, as seen in the three Lau Basin sediment records, appear to have been as short as 0.6-1.0 k.y., although the duration of the normal-polarity event itself lasted only about 17 ± 4 k.y. The older (R to N) transition as well as the younger (N to R) transition show virtual geomagnetic paths roughly along the Americas, but shifted some 30° ± 10° to the east. These paths conflict with Cobb Mountain transition paths recorded in sediments from the Labrador Sea and the North Atlantic, but they are in fair accordance with sediment records from the Celebes and Sulu seas when corrected for differences in site longitude, suggesting that the transitional fields are dominated by nonaxial, high-order spherical harmonics.

Description: Integration of biostratigraphic and magnetostratigraphic results from Leg 135 sites has given additional information as to the position and reliability of various bioevents compared with previously published results. Two sites (834: Gilbert to Brunhes; and 836: Brunhes) provided excellent magnetic and biostratigraphic data. From these it is suggested that some bioevents are older than previously recorded: the first appearances (FAs) of Emiliania huxleyi (within the Brunhes Chron, at the same level as the FA of Helicosphaera inversa) and Globorotalia (Truncorotalia) truncatulinoides (within the upper Gauss Chron), and the last appearance (LA) of Gr. (Tr.) tosaensis (upper Matuyama Chron). The FA of Gr. (Tr.) crassaformis hessi is variable, but the oldest occurrence is just below the Cobb Mountain Subchron. Other key bioevents, such as the LAs of Discoaster pentaradiatus (just above the Réunion Subchron), D. tamalis (within the lower reversed part of the Matuyama Chron), Sphenolithus (lower Gauss Chron), and Amaurolithus primus (topmost Gilbert Chron) appear higher than previously recorded. Some key biostratigraphic taxa, such as Globigerinoides quadrilobatus fistulosus, Pulleniatina finalis, P. primalis, and Sphaeroidinella dehiscens, are either rare or their distribution is sporadic to the extent that they are unsuitable for biostratigraphic use in the area studied. Because of the rarity of P. primalis, the FA of Globorotalia (Globorotalia) multicamerata has been used to mark the base of Zone N17B. Though levels are present at most sites in which populations of Pulleniatina are sinistrally coiled, it is difficult to equate these coiling changes with previous records.

Description: Upper Quaternary calcareous nannofossils contained in drill cores taken in the heavily sedimented Middle Valley of the northern Juan de Fuca Ridge in the northeast Pacific Ocean (Ocean Drilling Program Leg 139) are investigated. The host sediments have been subjected at depth to high temperatures and hot hydrothermal fluids that have altered or destroyed in part or in toto the nannofossil assemblages, thereby raising at several sites the level of the first (deepest) stratigraphic occurrence of nannofossils or of the important Emiliania huxleyi datum. The degree of alteration of the nannofossil assemblages is dependent on the intensity of the hydrothermal activity, which is indicated by paleotemperatures derived independently from studies of color alteration of palynomorphs and by vitrinite reflectance (Mao et al., this volume). State of preservation and the downhole level at which assemblages have been destroyed correlate well with the inferred paleotemperature estimates. Destruction of the assemblages appears to be species selective and follows in general the dissolution rankings determined independently by others for Recent nannofossils of the Pacific basin. More systematic correlation of these phenomena is hampered, however, by the fact that nannofossil preservation is already quite variable at the time of deposition because of the predominance of turbidite activity in the study area.

Description: Late Quaternary planktonic foraminiferal biostratigraphy and paleoceanography were examined at two sites from the east margin of Middle Valley of the northern Juan de Fuca Ridge. Calcareous microfossils are abundant and well preserved in the upper sequences where thermal and hydrothermal alteration is minimal and where deposition occurred after sites were tectonically raised above the turbidite plain of the axial valley. Approximately 200 samples were examined to determine depositional style and foraminiferal content including a census of planktonic foraminifers. Approximately 60% of the samples contain turbiditic material, so paleontologic interpretations must be made with caution. Ocean Drilling Program (ODP) Holes 856Aand 857 A contain abundant foraminifers above 52 and 85 mbsf, respectively. The fossiliferous sequences are divided into four informal coiling direction zones based on the species Neogloboquadrina pachyderma (Ehrenberg) and numbered from 1 to 4 from top to bottom of the sequences. Coiling direction zones 1 and 3 contain 〈90% sinistral forms and include the lower part of the present and penultimate interglacial periods and perhaps part of the glacial termination. Coiling direction zones 2 and 4 contain 〉90% sinistral forms and span most of the last two glacial periods. The bases of coiling direction zones 1 and 3 define two datum levels tentatively dated at 11,000 and 125,000 yr ago, respectively. Cluster analysis identified three assemblages: a subarctic assemblage, a transitional assemblage, and a subarctic dissolution assemblage. The subarctic dissolution assemblage occurs infrequently and sporadically throughout the unaltered glacial intervals in Holes 856A and 857A. In contrast, the dissolution assemblage dominates Hole 856A below 22 mbsf and is related to calcite precipitation driven by hydrothermal processes. The transitional assemblage appears in coiling direction zone 3 and records the close approach of the subpolar boundary to the ODP Leg 139 locale during the penultimate interglacial period. The subpolar boundary remained south of the study site at approximately 48°30'N latitude throughout the late Quaternary.

Description: Cr-spinels in cores drilled during Ocean Drilling Program Leg 135 exhibit wide variations in composition and morphology that reflect complex petrogenetic histories. These Cr-spinels are found within basaltic lava flows that erupted in north-trending sub-basins within the Lau Basin backarc. Cr-spinels from Sites 834 and 836 occur as euhedral groundmass grains and inclusions in plagioclase, and range up to 300 ?m in size. These Cr-spinels are similar in composition, morphology, and mode of occurrence to Cr-spinels found within depleted, N-type mid-ocean-ridge basalts (N-MORB), reflecting similar crystallization conditions and host lava composition to N-MORB. Their compositional range is relatively narrow, with Cr/(Cr + Al + Fe3+) (Cr#) and Mg/(Mg + Fe2+) (Mg#) varying from 0.38 to 0.48 and 0.56 to 0.72, respectively; like Cr-spinels from N-MORB, they contain low amounts of TiO2 (0.37%-1.05%) and Fe3+/(Cr + Al + Fe3+) (Fe3+#; 〈0.11). In contrast, Cr-spinels from Site 839 have much higher Cr# at a given Mg#, with Cr# varying from 0.52 to 0.76 and Mg# varying from 0.27 to 0.75. These Cr-spinels are similar in composition to those from primitive, boninitic or low-Al2O3 arc basalts, sharing their low TiO2 and Fe3+# (typically below 0.35% and 0.1, respectively for spinel grain interiors). Site 839 Cr-spinels occur as small (to 50 µm) euhedra within strongly zoned olivine or as unusually large (to 3 mm), euhedral to subhedral megacrysts. These megacrysts are strongly zoned in Mg#, but they display little zoning in Cr#, providing evidence of strong compositional disequilibria with the host melt. The magnesian cores of the megacrysts crystallized from primitive, near-primary melts derived from harzburgitic or highly depleted lherzolitic sources, and they provide evidence that the Site 839 spinel-bearing lavas were derived by the mixing of melt with a Mg# of 0.75-0.80 and evolved, Cr-spinel barren melt with a Mg# 〈 0.6 shortly before eruption.

Description: Depending on the temperature and the extent of diagenetic alteration of fluid chemistry, fluid flow at convergent margins may transfer important quantities of heat and mass between the crust and seawater, thereby influencing global mass, isotopic and heat budgets. In the North Aoba Basin, an intra-arc basin located at the New Hebrides Island Arc, alteration of volcanic ash to clay minerals and zeolites forms a CaCl2 brine, perhaps in less than 1 to 3 m.y. The brine results from an exchange of Ca for Na, K, and Mg, and an increase in Cl concentrations to a maximum of 1241 mM. The Cl increase is partly due to the transfer of H2O from the pore fluid into authigenic minerals, but water mass balances, d18O-Cl correlations, and Br/Cl ratios suggest that there is a source of Cl in the sediments. Concentration profiles indicate that Li is transferred from the fluid to solid phase at depths 〈300 meters below seafloor (mbsf), but at greater depths it is transferred from the solid to fluid phase, at temperatures possibly as low as 25°C. In the accretionary wedge extensive fluid flow appears to be confined to highly faulted regions. Although Cl concentrations less than seawater value are common at convergent margins, the New Hebrides margin contains little low-Cl fluid. Br/Cl ratios suggest the low-Cl fluid is from dilution, and d18O values indicate the water may be derived from mineral dehydration and mixing with meteoric water. The New Hebrides margin exhibits few surface manifestations of venting (e.g., sulfide-oxidizing benthic biological communities, carbonate crusts, mud volcanoes) and thus fluid fluxes may be smaller than at many other margins.

Description: Volcaniclastic sediments of North Aoba Basin (Vanuatu) recovered during Ocean Drilling Program (ODP) Leg 134 show a mineralogical and chemical overprint of low grade hydrothermal alteration superimposed on the primary magmatic source compositions. The purpose of this study was to identify authigenic mineral phases incorporated in the volcaniclastic sediments, to distinguish authigenic chemical and mineralogical signals from the original volcaniclastic mineralogical and chemical compositions, and to determine the mechanism of authigenic minerals formation. Mineralogical, micro-chemical and bulk chemical analyses were utilized to identify and characterize authigenic phases and determine the original unaltered ash compositions. 117 volcaniclastic sediment samples from North Aoba Basin Sites 832 and 833 were analyzed. Primary volcaniclastic materials accumulated in North Aoba Basin can be divided into three types. The older basin-filling sequences show three different magmatic trends: high K, calc-alkaline, and low K series. The most recent accumulations are rhyodacitic composition and can be attributed to Santa Maria or Aoba volcanic emissions. Original depositional porosity of volcaniclastic sediments is an important factor in influencing distribution of authigenic phases. Finer-grained units are less altered and retain a bulk mineralogical and chemical composition close to the original pyroclastic rock composition. Coarser grained units (microbreccia and sandstones) are the major hosts of authigenic minerals. At both sites, authigenic minerals (including zeolites, clay minerals, Mg-carbonates, and quartz) exhibit complex zonation with depth that crosses original ash depositional boundaries and stratigraphic limits. The zeolite minerals phillipsite and analcime are ubiquitous throughout the altered intervals. At Site 832, the first zeolite minerals (phillipsite) occur in Pleistocene deposits as shallow as 146 meters below seafloor (mbsf). At Site 833 the first zeolite minerals (analcime) occur in Pleistocene deposits as shallow as 224 mbsf. The assemblage phillipsite + analcime + chabazite appears at 635 mbsf (Site 832) and at 376 mbsf (Site 833). Phillipsite + analcime + chabazite + thomsonite + heulandite are observed between 443 and 732 mbsf at Site 833. Thomsonite is no longer observed below 732 mbsf at Site 833. Heulandite is present to the base of the sections cored. The zeolite assemblages are associated with authigenic clay minerals (nontronite and saponite), calcite, and quartz. Chlorite is noticeable at Site 832 as deep as 851 mbsf. Zeolite zones are present but are less well defined at Site 832. Dolomite and rare magnesite are present below 940 m at Site 832. The coarse-grained authigenic mineral host intervals exhibit geochemical signatures that can be attributed to low grade hydrothermal alteration. The altered intervals show evidence of K2O, CaO, and rare earth elements mobilization. When compared to fine-grained, unaltered units, and to Santa Maria Island volcanics rocks, the altered zones are relatively depleted in rare earth elements, with light rare earth elements-heavy rare earth elements fractionation. Drilling at Site 833 penetrated a sill complex below 840 m. No sill was encountered at Site 832. Complex zonation of zeolite facies, authigenic smectites, carbonates and quartz, and associated geochemical signatures are present at both sites. The mineralogical and chemical alteration overprint is most pronounced in the deeper sections at Site 832. Based on mineralogical and chemical evidence at two locations less than 50 km apart, there is vertical and lateral variation in alteration of the volcaniclastic sediments of North Aoba Basin. The alteration observed may be activated by sill intrusion and associated expulsion of heated fluids into intervals of greater porosity. Such spatial variation in alteration could be attributed to the evolution of the basin axis associated with subduction processes along the New Hebrides Trench.

Description: A high-resolution record of foraminiferal fragmentation (a dissolution indicator) for the last 250 k.y. (isotopic Stages 1 to 7) is identified in the upper 61.9 m of Ocean Drilling Program (ODP) Hole 828A, west Vanuatu. This record is comparable in detail to the atmospheric CO2 record and the d18O stack. Phase shifts between preservation spikes and maximum ice volumes (d18O of Globigerinoides sacculifer) are analogous to those on Ontong Java Plateau. Mass spectrometer (AMS14C) dating of a sample taken at the base of dissolution cycle B1 and the position of the last glacial maximum indicates a lag in time of ~8 k.y. in the Vanuatu region for the last glacial termination. When dissolution spikes are compared with minimum ice volumes there is no phase shift for the last two glacial terminations. The difference between Vanuatu and Ontong Java Plateau may be explained by local CO2 sinks and the interplay between intermediate and deep water masses. Terrigenous input increasingly affected sediment of Hole 828A on the North d'Entrecasteaux Ridge (NDR) as it approached Espiritu Santo Island. Mud and silt suspended in mid-water flows become important after 125 ka, while turbidites bypass the New Hebrides Trench only towards the last glacial maximum (LGM). Terrigenous supply seems to affect the lysocline profile that changed from an "open ocean" to a "near continent" type, thus favoring dissolution. Fragmentation of planktonic foraminifers is a more sensitive indicator of lysocline variations than is foraminiferal susceptibility to dissolution, the foraminiferal dissolution index, the abundance of benthic foraminifers, or CaCO3 content. A modern foraminiferal lysocline for the neighboring area (between 10°S and 30°S, and 160°E and 180°E) is found at 3.1 km below sea level, compared to west Vanuatu where it is shallower. The past lysocline level was deeper than 3086 m during intervals of dissolution minima, and ranged from ~2550 to 3000 m during intervals of dissolution maxima. The high sedimentation rates (in the order of 10 to 50 cm/k.y.) found in Hole 828A offer a great potential for future high-resolution studies either in this hole or other western localities along the NDR. Areas of high sedimentation near continental regions have been discarded for paleoceanographic and/or paleoclimatic studies. Nonetheless, conditions analogous to those found in Hole 828A are expected to occur in many trench areas around the world where mid-water flows have preserved as yet undiscovered fine high-resolution sedimentary records.

Description: Igneous rocks recovered from Ocean Drilling Program (ODP) Leg 134 Sites 827, 829, and 830 at the toe of the forearc slope of New Hebrides Island Arc were investigated, using petrography, mineral chemistry, major and trace element, and Sr, Nd, and Pb isotopic analyses. Basaltic and andesitic clasts, together with detrital crystals of plagioclase, pyroxenes, and amphiboles embedded in sed-lithic conglomerate or volcanic siltstone and sandstone of Pleistocene age, were recovered from Sites 827 and 830. Petrological features of these lava clasts suggest a provenance from the Western Belt of New Hebrides Island Arc; igneous constituents were incorporated into breccias and sandstones, which were in turn reworked into a second generation breccia. Drilling at Site 829 recovered a variety of igneous rocks including basalts and probably comagmatic dolerites and gabbros, plus rare ultramafic rocks. Geochemical features, including Pb isotopic ratios, of the mafic rocks are intermediate between midocean ridge basalts and island arc tholeiites, and these rocks are interpreted to be backarc basin basalts. No correlates of these mafic rocks are known from Espiritu Santo and Malakula islands, nor do they occur in the Pleistocene volcanic breccias at Sites 827 and 830. However, basalts with very similar trace element and isotopic compositions have been recovered from the northern flank of North d'Entrecasteaux Ridge at Site 828. It is proposed that igneous rocks drilled at Site 829 represent material from the North d'Entrecasteaux Ridge accreted onto the over-riding Pacific Plate during collision. An original depleted mantle harzburgitic composition is inferred for a serpentinite clast recovered at 407 meters below seafloor (mbsf) in Hole 829A. Its provenance is a matter of speculation. It could have been brought up along a deep thrust fault affecting the Pacific Plate at the colliding margin, or analogous to the Site 829 basaltic lavas, it may represent material accreted from the North d'Entrecasteaux Ridge.

Description: Petrography, major and trace elements, mineral chemistry, and Sr, Nd, and Pb isotopic ratios are reported for igneous rocks drilled on the northern flank of the North d'Entrecasteaux Ridge (NDR) during Ocean Drilling Program (ODP) Leg 134 Site 828. These rocks comprise a breccia unit beneath a middle Eocene foraminiferal ooze. Both geophysical characteristics and the variety of volcanic rocks found at the bottom of Holes 828A and 828B indicate that a very immature breccia or scree deposit was sampled. Basalts are moderately to highly altered, but primary textures are well preserved. Two groups with different magmatic affinities, unrelated to the stratigraphic height, have been distinguished. One group consists of aphyric to sparsely plagioclase + clinopyroxene-phyric basalts, characterized by high TiO2 (~2 wt%) and low Al2O3 (less than 15 wt%) contents, with flat MORB-normalized incompatible element patterns and LREE-depleted chondrite-normalized REE patterns. This group resembles N-MORB. The other group comprises moderately to highly olivine + plagioclase-phyric basalts with low TiO2 (〈1 wt%) and high Al2O3 (usually 〉15 wt%) contents, and marked HFSE depletion and LFSE enrichment. Some lavas in this group are picritic, with relatively high modal olivine abundances, and MgO contents up to 15 wt%. Both the basalts and picritic basalts of this group reflect an influence by subduction-related processes, and have compositions transitional between MORB and IAT. Lavas with similar geochemical features have been reported from small back-arc basins such as the Mariana Trough, Lau Basin, Sulu Sea, and the North Fiji Basin and are referred to as back-arc basin basalts. However, regional tectonic considerations suggest that the spreading that produced these backarc basin basalts may have occurred in the forearc region of the southwest-facing island arc that existed in this region in the Eocene.

Description: Volcanic ash layers (1-3 cm thick) are abundant in the North Aoba Basin drill sites but less common at forearc sites. Ash deposited on the forearc slopes is liable to be redistributed as turbidites. In addition, the westerly upper winds also minimize ash-fall on the western (forearc) side of the New Hebrides Island Arc. Crystalline components in the ashes are primarily plagioclase (An90-An44), clinopyroxene (Ca46Mg49Fe5-Ca43Mg33Fe24), olivine (Fo87-Fo62), and titanomagnetite. There are also small amounts of orthopyroxene, magnetite, apatite, and quartz. Glass shards occur in most of the ashes and range in composition from basalt to rhyolite. There is often a variety of glass compositions within a single ash layer. One explanation for this is that the rate of accumulation of ash from several different eruptions or eruptive phases exceeded the background sedimentation rate: there may also have been a certain amount of reworking. The high-K and low-K trends previously recognized in volcanic rocks from the New Hebrides Island Arc are clearly represented in the Leg 134 glasses. All of the ashes investigated here are thought to have originated from the Central Chain volcanoes. The source of the high-K group was probably the Central Basin volcanoes of Santa Maria, Aoba, and Ambrym. The lower-K series includes a distinctive group of dacites and is likely to have originated from the Epi-Tongoa-Tongariki sector of the arc where major pyroclastic eruptions, associated with caldera collapse, have occurred during the Holocene, perhaps as recently as 400 yr ago.

Description: Distribution of pore space and degree of cementation appear to be the main factors controlling the permeability of sediments retrieved from the Lau Basin. The undisturbed microfabrics of two lithologies, nannofossil ooze and vitric sandy silt, commonly found at Holes 834A, 835A, 838A, and 839Aof Leg 135 were examined by scanning electron microscopy equipped with energy dispersive X-ray spectral analysis and image analysis systems. The results of these analyses were compared with laboratory determinations of porosity, grain-size distribution, and permeability on discrete samples from the same sediment depths. The permeability of the vitric sandy silt is 3-5 orders of magnitude higher than the nannofossil ooze samples. The porosity of nannofossil ooze ranges from 6% to 12% greater than the porosity of vitric sandy silt, which partially reflects the finer texture of nannofossil ooze. Although the correlation of higher porosity with lower permeability is not surprising, factors other than simply grain-size distribution must be invoked to explain the large differences in permeability found in these samples.

Description: The geometry of the Tonga Arc implies that it has rotated approximately 17° clockwise away from the Lau Ridge as the Lau Basin formed in between. Questions have arisen about the timing of the opening, whether the arc behaved rigidly, and whether the opening occurred instead from motion of the Lau Ridge, the remanent arc. We undertook to address these questions by taking paleomagnetic samples from sediment cores drilled on the Tonga Arc at Sites 840 and 841, orienting the samples in azimuth, and comparing the paleodeclinations to expected directions. Advanced hydraulic piston corer (APC) cores from Holes 840C and 841A were oriented during drilling with a tool based on a magnetic compass and attached to the core barrel. Samples from Hole 841B were drilled with a rotary core barrel (RCB) and therefore are azimuthally unoriented. They were oriented by identifying faults and dipping beds in the core and aligning them with the same features in the Formation MicroScanner (FMS) wireline logs, which were themselves oriented with a three-axis magnetometer in the FMS tool. The best results came from the APC cores, which yielded a mean pole at -69.0°S, 112.2°E for an age of 4 Ma. This pole implies a declination anomaly of 20.8° ± 12.6° (95% confidence limit), which appears to have occurred by tectonic rotation of the Tonga Arc. This value is almost exactly that expected from the geometry of the arc and implies that it did indeed rotate clockwise as a rigid body. The large uncertainty in azimuth results from core orientation errors, which have an average standard deviation of 18.6°. The youngest cores used to calculate the APC pole contain sediments deposited during Subchron 2A (2.48-3.40 Ma), and their declinations are indistinguishable from the others. This observation suggests that most of the rotation occurred after their deposition; this conclusion must be treated with caution, however, because of the large azimuthal orientation errors. Poles from late and early Miocene sediments of Hole 841B are more difficult to interpret. Samples from this hole are mostly normal in polarity, fail a reversal test, and yield poles that suggest that the normal-polarity directions may be a recent overprint. Late Miocene reversed-polarity samples may be unaffected by this overprint; if so, they imply a declination anomaly of 51.1° ± 11.5°. This observation may indicate that, for older sediments, Tonga forearc rotations are larger than expected.

Description: The results of inductively coupled argon plasma (ICAP) chemical analyses carried out on some 300 core samples from Ocean Drilling Program Sites 834, 835, 838, and 839 are presented. These sites were drilled during Leg 135 in the Lau Basin. The data are compared with total gamma (SGR) wireline logs at Sites 834 and 835. Pliocene (Piacenzian) nannofossil Zone CN12, which has been identified at Sites 834 and 835, is examined in detail using spectral analyses on core and wireline logs. The potassium and calcium concentrations from the core material were used to calculate an objective depth-to-geological time stretching function, which improved the stratigraphic correlation between sites. The integrated use of chemical analyses, wireline-log data and paleomagnetic results improved confidence in the correlations obtained. Although no significant sedimentation periodicities were obtained from the two sites, a common concentration of energy between 30 and 60 k.y. was recorded.

Description: Sedimentary sections recovered from the Tonga platform and forearc during Ocean Drilling Program Leg 135 provide a record of the sedimentary evolution of the active margin of the Indo-Australian Plate from late Eocene time to the Present. Facies analyses of the sediments, coupled with interpretations of downhole Formation MicroScanner logs, allow the complete sedimentary and subsidence history of each site to be reconstructed. After taking into account the water depths in which the sediments were deposited and their subsequent compaction, the forearc region of the Tofua Arc (Site 841) can be seen to have experienced an initial period of tectonic subsidence dating from 35.5 Ma. Subsidence has probably been gradual since that time, with possible phases of accelerated subsidence, starting at 16.2 and 10.0 Ma. The Tonga Platform (Site 840) records only the last 7.0 Ma of arc evolution. However, the increased accuracy of paleowater depth determinations possible with shallow-water platform sediments allows the resolution of a distinct increase in subsidence rates at 5.30 Ma. Thus, sedimentology and subsidence analyses show the existence of at least two, and possibly four, separate subsidence events in the forearc region. Subsidence dating from 35.5 Ma is linked to rifting of the South Fiji Basin. Any subsidence dating from 16.2 Ma at Site 841 does not correlate with another known tectonic event and is perhaps linked to localized extensional faulting related to slab roll back during steady-state subduction. Subsidence from 10.0 Ma coincides with the breakup of the early Tertiary Vitiaz Arc because of the subduction polarity reversal in the New Hebrides and the subsequent readjustment of the plate boundary geometry. More recently, rapid subsidence and deposition of a upward-fining cycle from 5.30 Ma to the Present at Site 840 is thought to relate to rifting of the Lau Basin. Sedimentation is principally controlled by tectonic activity, with variations in eustatic sea level playing a significant, but subordinate role. Subduction of the Louisville Seamount Chain seems to have disrupted the forearc region locally, although it had only a modest effect on the subsidence history and sedimentation of the Tonga Platform as a whole.

Description: The sediment column overlying basement in the Lau Basin consists of a sequence of volcaniclastic turbidites interbedded with hemipelagic clayey nannofossil mixed sediments, overlain in turn by a sequence of hemipelagic clayey nannofossil oozes containing sporadic calcareous turbidites. The clayey nannofossil oozes and mixed sediments are pervasively stained by hydrothermally derived iron and manganese oxyhydroxides. Sharply defined, lighter colored bands occur in the hemipelagic sediments, immediately beneath some (but by no means all) volcaniclastic and calcareous turbidites. These are identified as reduction haloes, of a type previously identified in quite different turbidite/pelagic sequences. The haloes are attributed to the burial of labile surficial Corg by turbidites, followed by the remineralization of this Corg with Mn and Fe oxyhydroxides as electron acceptors. The resultant characteristic Mn and Fe concentration/depth profiles are described, and a model is proposed for their development. The color alteration of the halo is ascribed to the removal of Mn oxyhydroxides, because, although the Fe content fluctuates through the haloes, this does not appear to affect their color. Other elements (Co, Cu, and Ni) are also at low concentration levels in the haloes like Mn, consistent with remobilization and migration out of the halo section, although the profile shapes are not identical with those of Mn. The behavior of V is distinctive in that it appears to have migrated into the haloes to be enriched there. Haloes are unlikely to form if turbidite emplacement is erosive and removes the near-surface layer, which generally is the most fluid part of the sediment and contains the highest levels of reactive Corg to drive the reduction process. Conversely, the presence of a halo implies that emplacement of the overlying turbidite did not significantly erode the pre-existing sediment/water interface.

Description: Detailed comparison of mineralogy, and major and trace geochemistry are presented for the modern Lau Basin spreading centers, the Sites 834-839 lavas, the modern Tonga-Kermadec arc volcanics, the northern Tongan boninites, and the Lau Ridge volcanics. The data clearly confirm the variations from near normal mid-ocean-ridge basalt (N-MORB) chemistries (e.g., Site 834, Central Lau Spreading Center) to strongly arc-like (e.g., Site 839, Valu Fa), the latter closely comparable to the modern arc volcanoes. Sites 835 and 836 and the East Lau Spreading Center represent transitional chemistries. Bulk compositions range from andesitic to basaltic, but lavas from Sites 834 and 836 and the Central Lau Spreading Center extend toward more silica-undersaturated compositions. The Valu Fa and modern Tonga-Kermadec arc lavas, in contrast, are dominated by basaltic andesites. The phenocryst and groundmass mineralogies show the strong arc-like affinities of the Site 839 lavas, which are also characterized by the existence of very magnesian olivines (up to Fo90-92) and Cr-rich spinels in Units 3 and 6, and highly anorthitic plagioclases in Units 2 and 9. The regional patterns of mineralogical and geochemical variations are interpreted in terms of two competing processes affecting the inferred magma sources: (1) mantle depletion processes, caused by previous melt extractions linked to backarc magmatism, and (2) enrichment in large-ion-lithophile elements, caused by a subduction contribution. A general trend of increasing depletion is inferred both eastward across the Lau Basin toward the modern arc, and northward along the Tongan (and Kermadec) Arc. Numerical modeling suggests that multistage magma extraction can explain the low abundances (relative to N-MORB) of elements such as Nb, Ta, and Ti, known to be characteristic of island arc magmas. It is further suggested that a subduction jump following prolonged slab rollback could account for the initiation of the Lau Basin opening, plausibly allowing a later influx of new mantle, as required by the recognition of a two-stage opening of the Lau Basin.

Description: Ocean Drilling Program Leg 135 provided igneous rock cores from six sites drilled on a transect across the Lau Basin between the Lau Ridge remnant arc and the modem spreading ridges of the Central and Eastern Lau Spreading Centers. The drill cores sampled crust from the earliest stage of backarc extension (latest Miocene time, about 6 Ma), and younger crust (late Pliocene, about 3.8-2 Ma, and middle Pleistocene, about 0.64-0.8 Ma). Nearly all of the igneous samples are from tholeiitic basalt flows; many of them are interbedded with arc-composition volcaniclastic sediments. Rock compositions range from olivine-plagioclase-clinopyroxene basalt, with up to 8% MgO, to oceanic andesites with less than 3.2% MgO and silica contents as high as 56%. The oldest rocks recovered are close in composition to rocks formed at the modern Central and Eastern Lau Spreading Centers and have MORB-like characteristics. Generation of the oldest units was coeval with arc-tholeiitic volcanism on the Lau Ridge less than 100 km to the west. The arc and backarc melts came from different mantle sources. At three sites near the center of the basin, the crust is arc-tholeiitic basalt, two-pyroxene basaltic-andesite, and two-pyroxene andesite. These rocks have many similarities to modem Tofua Arc lavas yet they were drilled within 70 km of the MORB-like Eastern Lau Spreading Center. Estimates of the minimum age for these arc-like rocks indicate that they are late Pliocene (about 2 Ma). These ages overlap the age of the nearby Eastern Lau Spreading Center. The heterogeneous crust of the Lau Basin carries many of the signatures of supra-subduction zone (SSZ) melts but also has a distinct MORB-like component. Mixing between SSZ and MORB mantle sources may explain the variations and the spatial distribution of magma types.

Description: We use a combination of graphic projections for exploratory interpretation of natural phase equilibria and liquid lines of descent. The data used are original shipboard X-ray fluorescence (XRF) analyses, supplemented by additional XRF analyses completed on shore, microprobe analyses of minerals in key samples, and microprobe data for glasses. Good agreement exists in the data groupings and trends between the projections used (CMAS, Al-Fe, and Pearce plots). The natural phase assemblages in the rock samples are consistent in most cases with those predicted by the graphically projected phase boundaries and liquid lines of descent, suggesting a major role for crystal-melt equilibria in the evolution of these rocks. This assumption is further tested with materials balance calculations and by analogy to experimental phase equilibria studies on a sample from Hole 839B. Shifts in graphic projections of inferred phase boundaries resemble those obtained experimentally at elevated pressure water-saturated, as detailed elsewhere in this volume. Materials-balance calculations yield excellent fits for most major element oxides. This provides strong support for inferred fractionation models, which imply "wet" equilibria for several subsets of the data. However, trace element variations in some data subsets are difficult to equate with the models, based on major element data, and appear to require heterogeneity in melt sources and/or in the trace element signatures of possible xenocrystal phases. It is also possible that the distribution coefficients usually assumed for "dry" systems are significantly altered under the high water contents inferred for these magmas.

Description: During Leg 134, the influence of ridge collision and subduction on the structural evolution of island arcs was investigated by drilling at a series of sites in the collision zone between the d'Entrecasteaux Zone (DEZ) and the central New Hebrides Island Arc. The DEZ is an arcuate Eocene-Oligocene submarine volcanic chain that extends from the northern New Caledonia Ridge to the New Hebrides Trench. High magnetic susceptibilities and intensities of magnetic remanence were measured in volcanic silts, sands, siltstones, and sandstones from collision zone sites. This chapter presents the preliminary results of studies of magnetic mineralogy, magnetic properties, and magnetic fabric of sediments and rocks from Sites 827 through 830 in the collision zone. The dominant carrier of remanence in the highly magnetic sediments and sedimentary rocks in the DEZ is low-titanium titanomagnetite of variable particle size. Changes in rock magnetic properties reflect variations in the abundance and size of titanomagnetite particles, which result from differences in volcanogenic contribution and the presence or absence of graded beds. Although the anisotropy of magnetic susceptibility results are difficult to interpret in terms of regional stresses because the cores were azimuthally unoriented, the shapes of the susceptibility ellipsoids provide information about deformation style. The magnetic fabric of most samples is oblate, dominated by foliation, as is the structural fabric. The variability of degree of anisotropy (P) and a factor that measures the shape of the ellipsoid (q) reflect the patchy nature of deformation, at a micrometer scale, that is elucidated by scanning electron microscope analysis. The nature of this patchiness implies that deformation in the shear zones is accomplished primarily by motion along bedding planes, whereas the material within the beds themselves remains relatively undeformed.

Description: A series of six holes in the Lau Basin and two in the Tonga Platform were drilled during Leg 135 of the Ocean Drilling Program. The volcaniclastic sands found within the sedimentary cover are typically dominated by fragments of dacite glass, although basaltic andesite glass, calcic plagioclase, and ortho- and clinopyroxene grains are also identified. Total silica contents of individual glass grains indicate a bimodal spread of values at sites close to the Eastern Lau Spreading Center (ELSC), whereas those adjacent to the remnant arc (Lau Ridge) showed a complete spread of compositions. Analyses from the Tonga Platform (Site 840) indicate a prerift phase of arc volcanism (7.0-5.0 Ma) when a complete spectrum of silica values was erupted before backarc basin rifting occurred and the locus of volcanism switched to intrabasinal seamounts producing very similar island-arc tholeiites and their differentiates. The principal mode of deposition of volcanic sediment in the Lau Basin is thought to be by proximal mass-flows and turbidity currents from submarine, intrabasinal seamounts. Continuous volcaniclastic sedimentation throughout the opening of the basin indicates that volcanism during the initial stages of basin rifting occurred in the form of intrabasinal submarine edifices, before the reestablishment of a fixed chain of arc volcanoes, adjacent to the Tonga Platform at approximately 3.0 Ma in the southern Lau Basin. Renewal of arc volcanism approximately coincided with the propagation of backarc spreading centers into that area. Trace and rare earth element analyses of basaltic grains (SiO2 = 45%-55%) from the Tonga Platform (Site 840) before and after rifting show systematic trends in the abundances of incompatible elements and in incompatible element ratios that are consistent with either progressive depletion and then reenrichment of a mantle source, or an equivalent progressive increase and then decrease in the degree of melting. On top of this, there is some indication of a systematic shift in the character of enrichment towards a greater abundance of mobile incompatibles associated with the flux from the slab. The culmination of this cycle can be considered to be the modern Tofua Arc. These trends are most reasonably attributed to a thinning of the arc lithosphere before rifting and the associated increase in the height of the melting column within the subarc asthenosphere. Subsequent magmatic underplating after rifting causes a thickening of the arc lithosphere and a fall in the degree of partial melting, with a progressive slab-flux component being added to the source. The incompatible element ratio trends are correlated whether they are high-field-strength elements, rare-earth elements, or mobile large-ion-lithophile elements, implying that they relate to incompatibilities between source and melt, even though the absolute values in the basic rocks are typically arc-like rather than MORB-like, particularly in their enrichment in Ba and depletion in Nb. The behavior of Nb in particular appears to have important implications for the process by which arc-tholeiites acquire their distinctive trace-element characteristics.

Description: Early Pliocene to Pleistocene volcaniclastic sediments recovered during Ocean Drilling Program Leg 135 from Sites 834 to 839 in the Lau Basin show a wide range of chemical and mineralogical compositions extending the spectrum previously known from the Lau Basin, Lau Ridge and Tofua Arc. The following major types of volcaniclastics have been distinguished: (1) primary fallout ashes originating from eruptions on land, (2) epiclastic deposits that resulted from subaerial and submarine eruptions, (3) subaqueous fallout and pyroclastic flow deposits resulting from explosive submarine eruptions, and (4) hyaloclastites resulting from mechanical fragmentation and spalling of chilled margins of submarine pillow tubes and sheet-lava flows. Vitric shards are mostly basaltic andesitic to rhyolitic and broadly follow two major trends in terms of K2O enrichment: a low-K series (LKS) with about 1 wt% K2O at 70 wt% SiO2, and a very low-K series (VLKS) with only about 0.5 wt% K2O at 70 wt% SiO2. Sites 834 and 835 on "old" backarc basin crust, 〉4.2 and 3.4 m.y. old, comprise LKS rhyolites 〉3.3 m.y. old. Calc-alkaline basaltic turbidites originating from the Lau Ridge flowed in at 3.3 Ma. In the period from 3.3 to 2.4 Ma basaltic andesitic to rhyolitic, fine-grained LKS and VLKS volcaniclastics were deposited by turbidity currents and subaerial fallout. Three thin, discrete fallout layers (2.4-3.2 m.y. old) with high-K calc-alkaline compositions probably erupted in New Zealand. Volcaniclastics from Site 836, all 〈0.6 m.y. old, make up 24% of the sediments and comprise local basaltic andesitic to andesitic hyaloclastites with low Ba/Zr ratios of 0.9 to 1.4 and polymict andesitic sediments with Ba/Zr ratios of up to 5.5, containing clasts altered to lower greenschist facies. In Sites 837-839, drilled on young crust (1.8-2.1 m.y. old), volcaniclastics make up 45%-64% of the total sediment. Glass compositions are often bimodal with a mafic and a rhyolitic population. Large-volume rhyolitic, silt- to lapilli-sized volcaniclastics are interpreted as pyroclastic flows from explosive eruptions on a seamount 25-50 km away from the sites. Ba/Zr ratios are 2 to 4, partially overlapping with some Lau Basin basement lavas that show an "arc" signature, and they can reach values 〉5 in thin volcaniclastic layers 〈0.6 m.y. old.

Description: Seven sites drilled in the central New Hebrides Island Arc during Ocean Drilling Program Leg 134 yielded varying quantities of upper Eocene through Pleistocene calcareous nannofossils. Most of the Miocene and Pliocene strata were absent from Sites 827-831 drilled along the collisional boundary between the Australia and Pacific plates where the North d'Entrecasteaux Ridge and Bougainville Guyot are being subducted. Sites 832 and 833, drilled in the intra-arc North Aoba Basin, contained upper Miocene through Pleistocene and early Pliocene through Pleistocene nannofossils, respectively. Detailed range charts displaying species abundances and age interpretations are presented for all of the sites. Despite problems of reworked assemblages, poor preservation, overgrowths and/or dilution from volcaniclastics, the nannofossil biostratigraphy delineates several repeated sections at Site 829 in the accretionary prism adjacent to Espiritu Santo Island. Paleogene pelagic sediments equivalent to those in a reference section at Site 828 appear to have been scraped from the downgoing North d'Entrecasteaux Ridge and accreted onto the forearc during the Pleistocene. Other sediments in the forearc include Pleistocene olistostromal trench-fill deposits containing clasts of various ages and compositions. Some of the clasts and olistoliths have affinities to rocks exposed on the neighboring islands and environs, whereas others are of uncertain origin. The matrix of the olistostromes is predominately Pleistocene, however, matrices of mixed nannofossil ages are frequently encountered. Comparisons of the mixed nannofossil ages in the matrices with sedimentological and structural data suggest that sediment mixing resulting from fault movement is subordinate to that occurring during deposition.

Description: Major and minor (Mn, Sr, Ba, V, Cr, Ni, Co, Zn, Cu, Zr, Y, Sc) elements and mineralogic compositions were determined on bulk sediments collected during Ocean Drilling Program Leg 135. Three classes of sediment samples from holes drilled in the Lau Basin are discriminated by mineralogy and major element data. Samples labeled Class 1 are significantly enriched in biogenic calcite and occur predominantly in the northern part of the basin (Sites 834-835), whereas those of Class 3 are mostly enriched in volcanogenic material and are predominant in the central part of the basin (Sites 836-839). The minor element composition records the effects of the hydrothermal activity on the sediments. In the northern area of the basin (Sites 834-835), sedimentation is characterized by higher accumulation rates of the carbonate and hydrothermal fractions. These sediments are probably reworked predominantly, transported in the water column, and then settled locally. Thus, ponded sediments are probably responsible to this high accumulation rates. Diagenetic processes altered the volcanic material to a grade corresponding to the stability of phillipsite. In the central area of the basin (Sites 836-839), sedimentation is characterized by the action of bottom currents preferentially reworking the carbonate and hydrothermal fractions. Volcanogenic accumulation rates are greater at these sites than in the northern Lau Basin. Alteration of volcanic material is more important deeper in the holes and records authigenesis of clay rich in Fe-Mg, most likely smectite. Locally, clay minerals have apparently incorporated Cr and other ore-forming elements.