Ocean Drilling Program Leg 188 Prydz Bay, Antarctica

Photo: Ocean Drilling Program

In its most recent drilling effort on the Antarctic Continental Margin, January-March 2000, the Ocean Drilling Program Leg 188 recovered sediment cores in Prydz Bay, East Antarctica. The materials that are now being studied in several laboratories around the globe span the entire Antarctic glacial history from its beginning in the Eocene. The JOIDES Resolution is the ship the Ocean Drilling Program has been using for its drilling activities and I participated as a shipboard sedimentologist.

The main objectives of our drilling campaign in the Prydz Bay region were to

1. Date the earliest evidence of glacial activity in Prydz Bay.
2. Link events in the East Antarctic Ice Sheet with changes in the Southern Ocean.
3. Recover a record of late Miocene and younger ice advances.

View a map and a profile of Prydz Bay and the Amery Ice Shelf by clicking the image:

Photos and information on the Prince Charles Mountains upstream of Prydz Bay can be found HERE

Here at Montclair State University we are currently carrying out laboratory work on samples collected during the cruise. Current projects include laser particle size analysis and inorganic geochemistry of Sites 1165 and 1166, and heavy mineral analysis of Sites 1166 and 1167.

Research publications:

Passchier, S., O’Brien, P.E., Damuth, J.E., Januszczack, N., Handwerger, D.A. and Whitehead, J.M., 2003. Pliocene-Pleistocene glaciomarine sedimentation in eastern Prydz Bay and development of the Prydz trough-mouth fan, ODP Sites 1166 and 1167, East Antarctica. Marine Geology, 199, 179-305.

Strand, K., Passchier, S., and Näsi, J., 2003. Implications of quartz grain microtextures for onset Eocene/Oligocene glaciation in Prydz Bay, ODP Site 1166, Antarctica. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, 198, 101-111.

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