scholarly journals IODP Expedition 329: Life and Habitability Beneath the Seafloor of the South Pacific Gyre

2013 ◽  
Vol 15 ◽  
pp. 4-10 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. D'Hondt ◽  
F. Inagaki ◽  
C. Alvarez Zarikian ◽  

Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP) Expedition 329 made major strides toward fulfilling its objectives. Shipboard studies documented (1) fundamental aspects of habitability and life in this very low activity subseafloor sedimentary ecosystem and (2) first-order patterns of habitability within the igneous basement. A broad range of postexpedition studies will complete the expedition objectives. Throughout the South Pacific Gyre (SPG; Sites U1365–U1370), dissolved oxygen and nitrate are present throughout the entire sediment sequence, and sedimentary microbial cell counts are lower than at all previously drilled IODP/ Ocean Drilling Program (ODP)/Deep Sea Drilling Program (DSDP) sites. In contrast, at Site U1371 in the upwelling zone just south of the gyre, detectable oxygen and nitrate are limited to the top and bottom of the sediment column, manganese reduction is a prominent electron-accepting process, and cell concentrations are higher than at the same depths in the SPG sites throughout the sediment column. Geographic variation in subseafloor profiles of dissolved and solid-phase chemicals are consistent with the magnitude of organic-fueled subseafloor respiration declining from outside the gyre to the gyre center. <br><br> Chemical profiles in the sedimentary pore water and secondary mineral distributions in the basaltic basement indicate that basement alteration continues on the timescale of formation fluid replacement, even at the sites with the oldest basement (84–120 Ma at Sites U1365 and U1366). <br><br> doi:<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.2204/iodp.sd.15.01.2013" target="_blank">10.2204/iodp.sd.15.01.2013</a>

2015 ◽  
Vol 65 (Pt_11) ◽  
pp. 4087-4092 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zenghu Zhang ◽  
Xin Gao ◽  
Yanlu Qiao ◽  
Yanan Wang ◽  
Xiao-Hua Zhang

A Gram-stain-negative, strictly aerobic, non-flagellated, non-gliding, oxidase- and catalase-positive, rod-shaped and orange-pigmented bacterium with appendages, designated strain SW027T, was isolated from a surface seawater sample collected from the South Pacific Gyre (26° 29′ S 137° 56′ W) during the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP) Expedition 329. Phylogenetic analysis based on 16S rRNA gene sequences indicated that strain SW027T shared the highest sequence similarity with members of the genus Muricauda (94.3–92.7 %), exhibiting 94.3 % sequence similarity to Muricauda flavescens SW-62T. Optimal growth occurred in the presence of 3 % (w/v) NaCl, at pH 7.0 and at 37 °C. The DNA G+C content of strain SW027T was 42.7 mol%. The major fatty acids were iso-C15 : 0, iso-C15 : 1 G and iso-C17 : 0 3-OH. The major respiratory quinone was menaquinone-6. The major polar lipids were phosphatidylethanolamine and two unidentified lipids. Enzymic activity profiles, cell morphology and DNA G+C content differentiated the novel bacterium from the most closely related members of the genus Muricauda. On the basis of the polyphasic analyses, strain SW027T is considered to represent a novel species of the genus Muricauda, for which the name Muricauda pacifica sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is SW027T ( = JCM 17861T = LMG 26637T).


2011 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
pp. 15-23 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. Escutia ◽  
H. Brinkhuis ◽  
A. Klaus ◽  

Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP) Expedition 318, Wilkes Land Glacial History, drilled a transect of sites across the Wilkes Land margin of Antarctica to provide a long-term record of the sedimentary archives of Cenozoic Antarctic glaciation and its intimate relationships with global climatic and oceanographic change. The Wilkes Land drilling program was undertaken to constrain the age, nature, and paleoenvironment of the previously only seismically inferred glacial sequences. The expedition (January–March 2010) recovered ~2000 meters of high-quality middle Eocene–Holocene sediments from water depths between 400 m and 4000 m at four sites on the Wilkes Land rise (U1355, U1356, U1359, and U1361) and three sites on the Wilkes Land shelf (U1357, U1358, and U1360). <br><br> These records span ~53 million years of Antarctic history, and the various seismic units (WL-S4–WL-S9) have been successfully dated. The cores reveal the history of the Wilkes Land Antarctic margin from an ice-free “greenhouse” Antarctica, to the first cooling, to the onset and erosional consequences of the first glaciation and the subsequent dynamics of the waxing and waning ice sheets, all the way to thick, unprecedented "tree ring style" records with seasonal resolution of the last deglaciation that began ~10,000 y ago. The cores also reveal details of the tectonic history of the Australo-Antarctic Gulf from 53 Ma, portraying the onset of the second phase of rifting between Australia and Antarctica, to ever-subsiding margins and deepening, to the present continental and ever-widening ocean/continent configuration. <br><br> doi:<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.2204/iodp.sd.12.02.2011" target="_blank">10.2204/iodp.sd.12.02.2011</a>


2012 ◽  
Vol 13 ◽  
pp. 28-34 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. A. H. Teagle ◽  
B. Ildefonse ◽  
P. Blum ◽  

Observations of the gabbroic layers of untectonized ocean crust are essential to test theoretical models of the accretion of new crust at mid-ocean ridges. Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP) Expedition 335 ("Superfast Spreading Rate Crust 4") returned to Ocean Drilling Program (ODP) Hole 1256D with the intention of deepening this reference penetration of intact ocean crust a significant distance (~350 m) into cumulate gabbros. Three earlier cruises to Hole 1256D (ODP 206, IODP 309/312) have drilled through the sediments, lavas, and dikes and 100 m into a complex dike-gabbro transition zone. <br><br> Operations on IODP Expedition 335 proved challenging throughout, with almost three weeks spent re-opening and securing unstable sections of the hole. When coring commenced, the comprehensive destruction of the coring bit required further remedial operations to remove junk and huge volumes of accumulated drill cuttings. Hole-cleaning operations using junk baskets were successful, and they recovered large irregular samples that document a hitherto unseen sequence of evolving geological conditions and the intimate coupling between temporally and spatially intercalated intrusive, hydrothermal, contact-metamorphic, partial melting, and retrogressive processes. <br><br> Hole 1256D is now clean of junk, and it has been thoroughly cleared of the drill cuttings that hampered operations during this and previous expeditions. At the end of Expedition 335, we briefly resumed coring before undertaking cementing operations to secure problematic intervals. To ensure the greatest scientific return from the huge efforts to stabilize this primary ocean lithosphere reference site, it would be prudent to resume the deepening of Hole 1256D in the nearest possible future while it is open to full depth. <br><br> doi:<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.2204/iodp.sd.13.04.2011" target="_blank">10.2204/iodp.sd.13.04.2011</a>


2008 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 299-310 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. Stemmann ◽  
D. Eloire ◽  
A. Sciandra ◽  
G. A. Jackson ◽  
L. Guidi ◽  
...  

Abstract. The French JGOFS BIOSOPE cruise crossed the South Pacific Gyre (SPG) on a transect between the Marquesas Islands and the Chilean coast on a 7500 km transect (8° S–34° S and 8° W–72° W). The number and volume distributions of small (3.5100 μm) were analysed combining two instruments, the HIAC/Royco Counter (for the small particles) and the Underwater Video Profiler (UVP, for the large particles). For the HIAC analysis, samples were collected from 12 L CTD Rosette bottles and immediately analysed on board while the UVP provided an estimate of in situ particle concentrations and size in a continuous profile. Out of 76 continuous UVP and 117 discrete HIAC vertical profiles, 25 had both sets of measurements, mostly at a site close to the Marquesas Islands (site MAR) and one in the center of the gyre (site GYR). At GYR, the particle number spectra from few μm to few mm were fit with power relationships having slopes close to −4. At MAR, the high abundance of large objects, probably living organisms, created a shift in the full size spectra of particles such that a single slope was not appropriate. The small particle pool at both sites showed a diel pattern while the large did not, implying that the movement of mass toward the large particles does not take place at daily scale in the SPG area. Despite the relatively simple nature of the number spectra, the volume spectra were more variable because what were small deviations from the straight line in a log-log plot were large variations in the volume estimates. In addition, the mass estimates from the size spectra are very sensitive to crucial parameters such as the fractal dimension and the POC/Dry Weight ratio. Using consistent values for these parameters, we show that the volume of large particles can equal the volume of the smaller particles. However the proportion of material in large particles decreased from the mesotrophic conditions at the border of the SPG to the ultra-oligotrophy of the center in the upper 200 m depth. We expect large particles to play a major role in the trophic interaction in the upper waters of the South Pacific Gyre.


2015 ◽  
Vol 177 ◽  
pp. 325-334 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert T. Letscher ◽  
Angela N. Knapp ◽  
Anna K. James ◽  
Craig A. Carlson ◽  
Alyson E. Santoro ◽  
...  

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rachel Brown ◽  
Thomas Chalk ◽  
Paul Wilson ◽  
Eelco Rohling ◽  
Gavin Foster

&lt;p&gt;The intensification of Northern Hemisphere glaciation (iNHG) at 3.4-2.5 million years ago (Ma) represents the last great transition in Cenozoic climate state with the development of large scale ice sheets in the Northern Hemisphere that waxed and waned with changes in insolation. Declining atmospheric CO&lt;sub&gt;2&lt;/sub&gt; levels are widely suggested to have been the main cause of iNHG but the CO&lt;sub&gt;2&lt;/sub&gt; proxy record is too poorly resolved to provide an adequate test of this hypothesis. The boron isotope-pH proxy, in particular, has shown promise when it comes to accurately estimating past CO&lt;sub&gt;2&lt;/sub&gt; concentrations and is very good at reconstructing relative changes in CO&lt;sub&gt;2&lt;/sub&gt; on orbital timescales. Here we present a new orbitally resolved record of atmospheric CO&lt;sub&gt;2 &lt;/sub&gt;(1 sample per 3 kyr) change from Integrated Ocean Drilling Program Site 999 (12.74&amp;#730;N, -78.74 &amp;#730;E) spanning ~2.6&amp;#8211;2.4&amp;#160;Ma based on the boron isotope (&amp;#948;&lt;sup&gt;11&lt;/sup&gt;B) composition of planktic foraminiferal calcite, &lt;em&gt;Globingerinoides ruber&lt;/em&gt; (senso stricto, white). &amp;#160;We find that &amp;#948;&lt;sup&gt;11&lt;/sup&gt;B values of &lt;em&gt;G. ruber&lt;/em&gt; show clear glacial-interglacial cycles with a magnitude that is similar to those of the Mid-Pleistocene at the same site and elsewhere.&amp;#160; This new high-resolution view of CO&lt;sub&gt;2&lt;/sub&gt; during the first large glacial events of the Pleistocene confirms the importance of CO&lt;sub&gt;2&lt;/sub&gt; in amplifying orbital forcing of climate and offers new insights into the mechanistic drivers of natural CO&lt;sub&gt;2&lt;/sub&gt; change.&amp;#160;&lt;/p&gt;


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