Apply to Sail: Expedition 378 South Pacific Paleogene Climate

The International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP) is now accepting applications for scientific participants on Expedition 378 South Pacific Paleogene Climate, aboard the JOIDES Resolution. For more information about the expedition science objectives and implementation plan, watch a replay of the web-based informational seminar that was held on 28 August 2017 (click here to access).

Expedition 378 will investigate the record of Cenozoic climate and oceanography through a drilling transect in the far southern Pacific Ocean. In particular, it will target sediments deposited during the very warm Late Paleocene and Early Eocene including the Paleocene-Eocene boundary, as well as the Eocene-Oligocene transition to investigate how the Eocene earth maintained high global temperatures and high heat transport to the polar regions despite receiving near modern levels of solar energy input. Investigation of the recovered sediments also will constrain the subpolar Pacific climate, oceanographic structure, and biogeochemical cycling of much of the Cenozoic. These sediments will be used to characterize water masses, deep and shallow ocean temperature, latitudinal temperature gradients, the strength of upwelling, and the strength of the zonal winds to study both the atmospheric and oceanic climatic subsystems.

The planned drilling strategy also will target a continuous sedimentary record at DSDP Site 277 by redrilling a previously spot-cored, classic Paleogene high latitude site. This will provide a crucial, continuous record of the shallow subantarctic South Pacific from the Paleocene to late Oligocene.

This expedition in the South Pacific Ocean is critical to contribute to global reconstructions of the early Cenozoic since appropriate high-latitude records are unobtainable in the Northern Hemisphere of the Pacific. The drilling strategy optimizes the recovery of Paleogene carbonates buried under red clay sequences at present latitudes of 50°S to permit a full range of paleoceanographic proxy-based investigations.

This expedition will also constrain (a) the Southern Ocean CCD history, (b) the record of Antarctic ice cover for the Paleogene through IRD characterization, (c) the development of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current, (d) the poleward extent of the low-productivity sub-tropical gyre, (e) the position of the polar front, (f) sea-surface temperatures and thermal gradients, (g) the breadth and intensity of the high-productivity zone associated with these oceanographic features, (h) the water masses formed in the sub-polar region, (i) the zonal winds and how they relate to oceanic surface circulation, and (j) document the changes in these systems as climate evolves from the warm early Eocene to the cold Antarctic-influence system of the Oligocene.

The expedition will take place from 14 October through 14 December 2018.

Opportunities exist for researchers (including graduate students) in all shipboard specialties, including but not limited to sedimentologists, micropaleontologists, paleomagnetists, inorganic/organic geochemists, petrologists, petrophysicists, microbiologists, and borehole geophysicists.

U.S.-affiliated scientists interested in participating in this expedition should apply to sail through the U.S. Science Support Program. The deadline to apply is September 15, 2017.

For questions, please email usssp@ldeo.columbia.edu.