New results from the Gulf of Corinth, Greece, a continental rift zone where the first stage of ocean basin formation is taking place, show how the environmental conditions and sediment input into the rift basin changed as the Earth alternated between non-glaciated to glaciated conditions over the last 500 thousand years.
New results from the Gulf of Corinth, Greece, a continental rift zone where the first stage of ocean basin formation is taking place, show how the environmental conditions and sediment input into the rift basin changed as the Earth alternated between non-glaciated to glaciated conditions over the last 500 thousand years. Young rift basins, such as the Gulf of Corinth, are known to be sensitive recorders of past changes in climate and sea level and of the chemical and biological conditions of the waters they contain. Nonetheless, the changes observed in the Gulf of Corinth were more dramatic and complex than anticipated. The volume of sediment filling the rift basin increased dramatically when the Earth was experiencing glaciated conditions compared with periods when the Earth was not glaciated.
This is an important discovery for understanding the impact that global climate fluctuations have on the history of sedimentation, particularly for the earliest sediments deposited as new ocean basins form. The process of continental rifting is fundamental for the formation of new ocean basins, and these basins are the source of a large proportion of the Earth’s hydrocarbon resources. Therefore their history of sedimentation informs how hydrocarbons are formed and where they may collect.
The results come from a new scientific ocean drilling expedition conducted as part of the International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP) and are published this week in the journal Scientific Reports in an article entitled “High-resolution record reveals climate-driven environmental and sedimentary changes in an active rift”. IODP Expedition 381 went to sea from October to December in 2017 on the drilling vessel Fugro Synergy, and the sediment cores and downhole data retrieved were analysed in February, 2018 by a 35-member team of international geoscientists. The Expedition and new publication was led by Professor Lisa McNeill from the University of Southampton, UK and Professor Donna Shillington of the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University, USA.
Read more at University of Southampton
Image: This is the drilling vessel Fugro Synergy preparing for IODP Expedition 381 in the port of Corinth, Greece. (Credit: C. Cotterill (ECORD/IODP))
