Well-preserved late Miocene through Pleistocene age radiolarian assemblages were recovered during ODP Leg 111 at Site 677, on the southern flank of the Costa Rica Rift in the eastern equatorial Pacific. Radiolarian event biostratigraphy (first and last morphotypic appearances) was established for Holes 677A and 677B using 21 species yielding 24 reliable datum levels. The cold upwelling waters above this site have prevented many typical tropical Pacific stratigraphic radiolarians from being useful age indicators. Biostratigraphic datum levels were assigned absolute ages based on pre vious work and were used to date the cores. Sedimentation rates varied from 3.7 cm/1000 yr in the late Pleistocene to 6.0 cm/1000 yr in the late Miocene. The age of the oldest sediments at this site is estimated as 5.89-6.37 Ma, which in dicates that Site 677 is between magnetic anomalies 3A and 4. A total of 67 taxa were assessed for stratigraphic rele vance at this site and are listed in the Appendix. One previously unknown Pliocene radiolarian stratigraphic indicator, Botryostrobus euporus (Ehrenberg), is identified.
Japan Sea ODP Leg 127 shipboard radiolarian biostratigraphic data are compiled and improved. The sequence of biostratigraphic events determined in sediments above the opal-A/opal-CT transition is illustrated graphically with depth-depth plots. The absence of biostratigraphic indicators from the North and subtropical Pacific and differences between the compositions of the Japan Sea and Pacific radiolarian assemblages suggest that the planktonic populations of the Japan Sea have been partially isolated from the Pacific since the late Miocene. Subtropical fauna in sediments younger than ~1.8 Ma at Site 797 record the occurrence of a paleo-Tsushima current. These same fauna record larger volumes of the paleo-Tsushima current, or warmer intervals during the colder glacial climate regime at Site 794. The variability of Pleistocene assemblage composition and preservation shows that radiolarian dissolution has played a large part in determining what is preserved. Preliminary taxonomic evaluations are made, and the stratigraphic and paleoceanographic implications of radiolarian species are discussed.
Hole 504B is by far the deepest hole yet drilled into the oceanic crust in situ, and it therefore provides the most complete “ground truth” now available to test our models of the structure and evolution of the upper oceanic crust. Cored in the eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean in 5.9‐m.y.‐old crust that formed at the Costa Rica Rift, hole 504B now extends to a total depth of 1562.3 m below seafloor, penetrating 274.5 m of sediments and 1287.8 m of basalts. The site was located where the rapidly accumulating sediments impede active hydrothermal circulation in the crust. As a result, the conductive heat flow approaches the value of about 200 mW/m² predicted by plate tectonic theory, and the in situ temperature at the total depth of the hole is about 165°C. The igneous section was continuously cored, but recovery was poor, averaging about 20%. The recovered core indicates that this section includes about 575 m of extrusive lavas, underlain by about 200 m of transition into over 500 m of intrusive sheeted dikes; the latter have been sampled in situ only in hole 504B. The igneous section is composed predominantly of magnesium‐rich olivine tholeiites with marked depletions in incompatible trace elements. Nearly all of the basalts have been altered to some degree, but the geochemistry of the freshest basalts is remarkably uniform throughout the hole. Successive stages of on‐axis and off‐axis alteration have produced three depth zones characterized by different assemblages of secondary minerals: (1) the upper 310 m of extrusives, characterized by oxidative “seafloor weathering“; (2) the lower extrusive section, characterized by smectite and pyrite; and (3) the combined transition zone and sheeted dikes, characterized by greenschist‐facies minerals. A comprehensive suite of logs and downhole measurements generally indicate that the basalt section can be divided on the basis of lithology, alteration, and porosity into three zones that are analogous to layers 2A, 2B, and 2C described by marine seismologists on the basis of characteristic seismic velocities. Many of the logs and experiments suggest the presence of a 100‐ to 200‐m‐thick layer 2A comprising the uppermost, rubbly pillow lavas, which is the only significantly permeable interval in the entire cored section. Layer 2B apparently corresponds to the lower section of extrusive lavas, in which original porosity is partially sealed as a result of alteration. Nearly all of the logs and experiments showed significant changes in in situ physical properties at about 900–1000 m below seafloor, within the transition between extrusives and sheeted dikes, indicating that this lithostratigraphic transition corresponds closely to that between seismic layers 2B and 2C and confirming that layer 2C consists of intrusive sheeted dikes. A vertical seismic profile conducted during leg 111 indicates that the next major transition deeper than the hole now extends—that between the sheeted dikes of seismic layer 2C and the gabbros of seismic layer 3, which has never been sampled in situ—may be within reach of the next drilling expedition to hole 504B. Therefore despite recent drilling problems deep in the hole, current plans now include revisiting hole 504B for further drilling and experiments when the Ocean Drilling Program returns to the eastern Pacific in 1991.
During Leg 111 of the Ocean Drilling
Program, scientists on the
drilling vessel JOIDES Resolution
studied crustal structure and hydrothermal
processes in the eastern
equatorial Pacific. Leg 111 spent 43
days on its primary objective, deepening
and logging Hole 5048, a deep
reference hole in 5.9-million-year-old
crust 200 km south of the spreading
axis of the Costa Rica Rift. Even before
Leg 111 , Hole 5048 was the deepest
hole drilled into the oceanic crust,
penetrating 274.5 m of sediments and
1,075.5 m of pillow lavas and sheeted
dikes to a total depth of 1,350 m
below sea floor (mbsf). Leg 111 deepened
the hole by 212.3 m to a total
depth of 1,562.3 mbsf (1,287.8 m into
basement), and completed a highly successful suite of geophysical logs
and experiments, including sampling
of borehole waters.
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