JR Expedition 318: Wilkes Land Glacial History

TODAY'S LOCATION:  SITE U1356, 63 S, 135 E

Adam Klaus Explains IODP Expedition 318 to Young Explorers in Texas (and we though you might like it, too)

The Wilkes Land Glacial history expedition starts in Wellington, New Zealand on 4 Jan 2010 and returns to Hobart, Tasmania on 9 March.  While off the coast of Antarctica, we will be taking cores from the seafloor to investigate when and why the ice sheet started growing on Antarctica and how the ice sheet has grown and melted during the last 35 million years.

We will focus on learning about the interaction of climate, ice sheet growth, and ocean currents.  The sediment cores we bring into the labs on the ship will cover periods in Earth's history that were extremely warm - think palm trees and crocodiles at the poles - instead of polar bears and penguins! 

At one of the expedition sites, we also hope to obtain a super-high resolution record (very detailed) of just the last 10,000 years - the sediment at this site was deposited so quickly that each yearly layer is about 3 cm thick.  We hope it will give us an Antarctic climate history record just like what tree rings can give. 

Why are we doing this?  If we want to have any chance of predicting how our climate might change in the future, we must understand how the Earth's climate system (air, ice, oceans) worked in the past.  The sediments deposited on the seafloor record the climatic and oceanographic conditions at the time they were deposited - our sediment cores are one of the only and best ways we can get at this important information. 

C0-CHIEF SCIENTISTS:  Carlota Escutia Dotti (Spain) and Henk Brinkhuis (The Netherlands)

LOGGING STAFF SCIENTISTS:  Annick Fehr and Trevor Williams

STAFF SCIENTIST:  Adam Klaus (USA)

RESOURCES

• JR Blogs - Many scientists are recording their adventures and writing about their lives and work at sea on the JR Blog Page.
• Museum, magazine, and univeristy blogs - Expedition 318 particpants are sharing their impressions on a number of interesting and well-known sites in addition to the JR blogs.  We'll list them here as each address becomes available.
  • Follow Sandra Passchier's blog on the Montclair State University site.
  • Read what Tina van de Flierdt has to say in her blog on the Imperial College London website.
    
  • If you can read Dutch, try the blogs by co-chief Henk  Brinkhuis and palynologist Peter Bilj.
  • You can also watch an interview with Peter on Dutch TV!
  • Can you read Italian?  if so, you can read our blogs on the Italian Antarctic Museum's website.  in other words...Parli italiano?  allora puoi seguire il nostro blog sul sito del Museo Nazionale dell'Antartide
  • Rob Dunbar is posting dispatches  and video to the Exploratorium's award-winning Ice STories website, where they have a special project page just for Wilkes.
    
• Take your class Live, Online, Offshore with SPRINTT!
• For the science savvy, a detailed scientific prospectus can be downloaded from the IODP-USIO webpage.
• Video Q and A:  Got a question?  Every week we'll select and videotape an answer to one question submitted through the JR's Ask-A-Scientist page.  Try it!
• Weekly video updates:  Our friends at Zcene Moving Media are producing lots of exciting "moving pictures."  This week's update features an interivew with Stanford scientist Rob Dunbar, the fifth installment of Penguin TV, and Gone in 30 Seconds with Steve Pekar.