ALBERT

Description: Cores, submarine photography and dredges described in this report were taken during the R/V Eltanin Cruise 5 in 1962 by the Department of Geology, Florida State University. Cores and dredges were recovered for 31 stations and are available at the Antarctic Research Facility, Florida State University for sampling and study.

Description: In May 1964 the Institute of Marine Science (University of Miami), Scripps Institution of Oceanography (University of California), Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, and Lamont Geological Observatory (Columbia University) joined in the establishment of the JOINT OCEANOGRAPHIC INSTITUTIONS DEEP EARTH SAMPLING (JOIDES) program. The long range purpose of this organization is to obtain continuous core samples of the entire sedimentary column from the floors of the oceans. It was decided that initial efforts would be limited to water depths of less than 1000 fathoms (6000 feet), and tentative locations were selected for drilling operations off the eastern, western and Gulf coasts of the United States. Near the end of December 1964 it was found that the M/V Caldrill I, a drilling vessel capable of working to depths of 6000 feet, was to engage in drilling operations on the Grand Banks of Newfoundland during the summer of 1965 for the Pan American Petroleum Corporation. Thus it was agreed to organize a drilling program along the track of Caldrill between California and the Grand Banks. Selection was made of an area on the continental shelf and the Blake Plateau off Jacksonville, Florida. Based upon many previous geological and geophysical investigations by the participating laboratories, a considerable body of knowledge had been gained about this region of the continental-oceanic border. For this initial program of JOIDES, the Lamont Geological Observatory was chosen as the operating institution with J. L. Worzel as principal investigator, and C. L. Drake and H. A. Gibbon as program planners.

Description: Cores, submarine photography and dredges described in this report were taken during the R/V Eltanin Cruise 6 in 1963 by the Department of Geology, Florida State University. Cores and dredges were recovered for 32 stations along with bottom photography and are available at the Antarctic Research Facility, Florida State University for sampling and study.

Description: A German coring device (Reineck, 1958) has been improved to obtain oriented, undisturbed cores at any depth of water. The samples are rectangular in shape, 8 × 12 inches in plan and a maximum of 18 inches high. Good cores have been obtained from clayey material as well as from gravelly sand. No disturbances due to coring were observed on the collected samples. These large samples make it possible to conduct many varieties of investigations, such as study of living organisms and shear strength measurements, as soon as the sample is on deck of a ship; radiography on slices, peeling and impregnation techniques, granulometry, mineralogy, porosity, fossil content, etc. Construction and use of the box corer and applications of some of these analytical techniques are described.

Description: Based on chemical, spectrographic and X-ray analyses, 34 samples from the experimental Mohole consist of variable proportions of calcite (0-60 percent), biogenic opal (0-50 percent), and normal lithogenous matter (14-97 percent) with an average of 20, 32, and 48 percent, respectively. Contamination with trachytic ash, rhyolitic ash, and saponite and dolomite occurring as alteration products of basaltic material affects the composition of a few samples. Magnesium, manganese, and phosphorus seem to have been derived from basaltic material also. The amounts of barium in the samples seems to be inversely related to sedimentation rates.

Description: The cores and dredges described in this report were taken on the DODO Expedition in May 1964 until December 1964 by the Scripps Institution of Oceanography from the R/V Argo. A total of 290 cores and dredges were recovered and are available at Scripps for sampling and study.

Description: This report gives a comprehensive general description of the scientific activities of Cruise 2 of R. R. S. 'Discovery'. These were largely geological and geophysical and were part of the British contribution to the International Indian Ocean Expedition. In addition to the thirteen geophysicists and geologists on board, there were five scientists involved in ocean chemistry, temperature measurements and ornithology making continuous observations - their accounts are also included. The report of a geological expediton ashore in the Seychelles is given in section 6.

Description: A criterion is suggested for discrimination between ferromanganese oxide minerals, deposited after the introduction of manganese and associated elements in sea water solution at submarine vulcanism, and minerals which are slowly formed from dilute solution, largely of continental origin. The simlultaneous injection of thorium into the ocean by submarine vulcanism is indicated, and its differentiation from continental thorium introduced into the ocean by runoff is discussed.

Description: Prof. H. H. W. Menard has brought together nearly all that was known of the Pacific geology in the early 1960s. His book contains a particular chapter on manganese nodules giving a stimulating review of the features and processes known to govern their distribution and chemical composition.

Description: This report gives a comprehensive general description of the scientific activities of Cruise 2 of R. R. S. 'Discovery'. These were largely geological and geophysical and were part of the British contribution to the International Indian Ocean Expedition. In addition to the thirteen geophysicists and geologists on board, there were five scientists involved in ocean chemistry, temperature measurements and ornithology making continuous observations - their accounts are also included. The report of a geological expediton ashore in the Seychelles is given in section 6.

Description: The cores and dredges described in this report were taken during the Robert Conrad Cruise 8 from November 1963 until August 1964 by the Lamont Geological Observatory, Columbia University from the R/V Robert Conrad. A total of 140 cores and dredges were recovered and are available at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory for sampling and study.

Description: A synoptic review of the studies of well-known occurrences of palagonite tuffs is presented. Included are palagonite tuffs from Iceland, and pillow-lava palagonite complexes from Columbia River basalts and from the central Oregon coast. Additional petrologic and x-ray defraction data for selected samples are presented. Petrologic evidence shows that basaltic glass of aqueous tuffs and breccias consists of sideromelane, which is susceptible to palagonitization. It is shown that palagonitization is a selective alteration process, involving hydration, oxidation and zeolitization. Some of the manganese nodules dredged from the Pacific Ocean floor contain nucleus of palagonite-tuff breccias or of zeolite. A brief megascopic and microscopic description of nodules from the south Pacific, the Mendocino ridge and the 'Horizon' Nodule from the north Pacific is presented. Petrographic studies of palagonite-tuff breccias of manganese nodules and other palagonites suggest that migration and segregation of metallic elements occur during and subsequent to palagonitization. During the palagonitization of sideromelane, nearly 30 percent of sea water is absorbed. The hydration of sideromelane is also accompanied by oxidation of iron and other elements. These oxides may be released either in colloidal form or in true solution and tend to precipitate first from the unstable palagonite.

Description: This collection of data on manganese nodules on the floor of the Pacific Ocean represents all the information that was available to the authors in May, 1964. It is compiled from both published references and original data. No attempt is made here to generalize or to speculate on the origin of the manganese or associated elements further discussion of these aspects of the subject may be had by reference to the literature.

Description: One the most interesting features of ocean sedimentation is the manganese formations on the surface of the ocean floor in some areas. These are especially widespread in the Pacific Ocean as concretions, grains, and crusts on rock fragments and bedrock outcrops. Iron-manganese concretions are the most abundant as they completely cover about 10% of the bottom of the Pacific Ocean where there are ore concentrations. The concretions occupy from 20-50% of the bottom and up to 80-90% on separate submarine rises. Such concretions are found in different types of bottom deposits, from abyssal red clays to terrigenous muds, but they occur most widely in red clays and quite often in carbonate muds. Their shape and their dimensions are very diverse and change from place to place, from station to station, varying from 0.5-20 cm. They may be oval, globular, reniform, or slaggy and often they are fiat or isometric concretions of an indefinite shape. The concretions generally have nuclei of pumice, basalt fragments, clayey and tuffaceous material, sharks' teeth, whale ossicles, and fossil sponges. Most concretions have concentric layers, combined with dendritic ramifications of iron and manganese oxides.

Description: Attempts to classify pelagic sediments have been based either on appearance and composition, or on the ultimate origin of the components. In particular it appears feasible to distinguish minerals which crystallized in sea-water from those which formed in magmas, in hydrothermal solution, or by weathering under acidic conditions. It is the case of iron and manganese oxide mineral aggregates which constitute one of the major types of rock encountered on the ocean floor; according to Menard (unpublished) about 10% of the pelagic area of the Pacific is covered by such nodules. The nodules consist of intimately intergrown crystallites of different minerals among those identified, besides detrital minerals and organic matter, are opal, goethite, rutile, anatase, barite, nontronite, and at least three manganese oxide minerals of major importance. Arrhenius and Korkisch (1959) have attempted to separate from each other the different minerals constituting the nodules, in order to establish the details of their structure and the localization of the heavy metal ions. The results demonstrate (Table II) that copper and nickel are concentrated in the manganese oxide phases concentrated in the reducible fraction. Cobalt, part of the nickel and most of the chromium are distributed between these and the acid-soluble group of the non-manganese minerals, dominated by goethite and disordered FeOOH.

Description: Analyses are given for the core and outer colliform shell of a manganese nodule collected at a depth of 5000 m in the Indian Ocean, and for the red clay that encloses the nodules. Trace elements determined include rare earths, Nb, Ta, Th, and V. The cores of the nodules were once composed of basaltic rock, but now are phillipsite and nontronite. The outer shell is composed of manganite, with admixed quartz, phillipsite, and some geothite. The correlations established between the redox potentials and the concentration coefficients for 12 elements indicate that Eh plays a greater role in the formation of the manganiferous shells than coprecipitation properties.

Description: The origin of authigenic minerals on the ocean floor has been extensively discussed in the past with emphasis on two major processes; precipitation from solutions originating from submarine eruptions, and slow precipitation from sea water of dissolved elements, originating from weathering of continental rocks. It is concluded that in several marine authigenic mineral systems these processes overlap. A diagnostic principle is suggested, permitting a qualitative or semiquantitative discrimination between marine authigenic minerals crystallized from dissolved species, which have spent a long time in solution on the one hand, and the same minerals generated from solutions, near their source on the other. Extensive data are available for the manganese and iron oxide minerals forming manganese nodules. It is indicated on the basis of their composition and structure that many of the nodules found in the vicinity of the continents are made up essentially of manganese derived from continental weathering. In contrast to this group, all of the nodules found in the Pacific area of submarine vulcanism display the criteria for rapid precipitation near the source of solution. The distribution of barium minerals over the deep ocean floor is discussed.The same diagnostic principle is suggested for application to these solids, in order to discriminate between baryte and harmotome crystallized near the source of barium- rich, acidic vulcanites, and the same minerals formed from continental solution with passage through the biosphere. In the case of the authigenic aluminosilicates it is found that many of the framework elements (Si and particularly Al) have low passage time through solution, and the major fraction of these elements is consequently removed from solution in the vicinity of the eruptive source materials. Extensive modification of the crystal structures, however, takes place over long periods of time, adding particularly cations from sea water, and probably to some extent silica from siliceous fossils, which on their decay on the ocean floor appear to contribute to the silicate framework of growing zeolites. The marked fractionation of the rare earth ions between coexisting phases is pointed out, with discussion of the potential use of this phenomenon to indicate the processes of formation. The use of the hafnium/zirconium ratio as a tracer for the igneous source type is suggested, and the application of ideally imperfect tracers to establish the varying relative importance of volcanic versus halmeic source of marine minerals is discussed in general.

Description: In an earlier paper by two of the authors the conclusion was reached that the 33 recognized species of oxides of Mn could be separated into 3 groups: 1) those which appeared to be persistently supergene in origin, 2) those which appeared to be persistently hypogene, and 3) those which were supergene in some localities and hypogene in other localities. When that paper was written, there were available about 250 X-ray diffraction analyses of mineral specimens, also 35 complete and about 150 partial chemical analyses. The conclusions of that paper were based upon the interpretation of the geologic conditions under which these specimens occurred. Late in the preparation of that paper, it seemed worthwhile to make numerous semiquantitative analyses of specimens, largely from 9 western [U.S.A] states, selected carefully from 5 groups of geologic environments, in the hope that the frequency and percentages of some elements might be distinctive of the several geologic groups. For this purpose, 95 specimens were selected from the 5 groups, as follows: 19 specimens interpreted as supergene oxides by the geologists who collected them, 35 specimens of hypogene vein oxides, 22 specimens of Mn-bearing hot spring aprons, 9 specimens of stratified oxides, and 10 specimens of deep-sea nodules. The spectrographic analyses here recorded indicate that a group of elements - W, Ba, Sr, Be, As, Sb, Tl, and Ge - are present more commonly, and largely in higher percentages, in the hypogene oxide than in the supergene oxides and thus serve to indicate different sources of the Mn. Also, the frequency and percentages of some of these elements indicate a genetic relation of the manganese oxides in hypogene veins, hot spring aprons, and stratified deposits. The analyses indicate a declining percentage of some elements from depth to the surface in these 3 related groups and increasing percentages of some other elements. It is concluded that some of the elements in deep-sea nodules indicate that sources other than rocks decomposed on the continents, probably vulcanism on the floors of the seas, have contributed to their formation.

Description: The cores described in this report were taken during the R/V Robert Conrad Cruise 02 from 26 until 28 January 1963 by the Lamont Geological Observatory, Columbia University. A total of 5 cores were recovered and are available at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory for sampling and study.

Description: The cores described in this report were taken during the R/V Robert Conrad Cruise 05 from March until April 1963 by the Lamont Geological Observatory, Columbia University. A total of 13 cores were recovered and are available at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory for sampling and study.

Description: The cores described in this report were taken during the R/V Robert Conrad Cruise 04 in March 1963 by the Lamont Geological Observatory, Columbia University. A total of 9 cores were recovered and are available at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory for sampling and study.

Description: The cores described in this report were taken during the R/V Robert Conrad Cruise 06 from May until June 1963 by the Lamont Geological Observatory, Columbia University. A total of 5 cores were recovered and are available at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory for sampling and study.

Description: The cores and dredges described in this report were taken during the Robert Conrad Cruise 7 from July until October 1963 by the Lamont Geological Observatory, Columbia University from the R/V Robert Conrad . A total of 29 cores and dredges were recovered and are available at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory for sampling and study.

Description: Uranium, radium, thorium and ionium were determined directly on seven concretions from three stations in the Indian Ocean, and on two concretions and a manganese-rich crust from two stations in the Pacific Ocean. The uranium content averages 3 to 5 gamma/g and the thorium content varies only slightly, but the Th/U ratio in the concretions is typically 2 to 5 in the Indian Ocean and 5 to 15.5 in the Pacific. The ionium content ranges from 1.0 x 10-9 to 3.6 10**-9 g/g in concretions from both oceans. Radium is more abundant in specimens from the Pacific Ocean (Ra = 3 - 12.7 x 10**-11 g/g) than from the Indian Ocean (1.5 - 5.2 x 10**-11 g/g). Analyses for Ca, Mn, Fe, Si, Ni, P, and ignition loss are also given. Radioactive equilibria between uranium, ionium, and radium are strongly disturbed throughout the concretions, and the RA/U and lo/U ratios generally exceed equilibrium ratios. Migration of radium from interior layers was established, so that neither determination of the ages of the concretions nor of their rates of growth can be considered reliable. The age of the concretions cannot exceed 800,000 years, and all grew within relatively short periods of time; there may have been "dormant" periods during growth. Estimates of growth rates are calculated from the radium and ionium contents; they show marked discordance.

Description: The cores and dredges described in this report were taken on the LUSIAD Expedition from May 1962 until August 1963 by the Scripps Institution of Oceanography from both the R/V Argo and the R/V Horizon. A total of 310 cores and dredges were recovered and are available at Scripps for sampling and study.