Ground-Breaking Arctic Expedition

URI ocean engineer and geological oceanographer Dr. Kathryn Moran, the expedition’s co-chief scientist, noted, “Although we’ve looked at only 3% of the material so far, it reveals a treasure-trove of exciting results. For example, 55 million years ago, the sediments indicate that the Arctic was an ice-free balmy sea, with warm surface waters (68°F rather than today’s 28°F) that were sometimes less salty, almost like an estuary. With further research, we expect to uncover additional clues as to how Earth’s climate system worked long ago, prior to mankind’s ‘global experiment’ of pumping massive quantities of CO2 into the atmosphere.”

The primary objective of the $12.5 million Arctic Coring Expedition (ACEX), conducted under the auspices of the international Integrated Ocean Drilling Program, was to recover hundreds of meters of sediment draped atop the Lomonosov Ridge, an underwater mountain chain that snakes from Greenland, to the North Pole, and over to Russia.

In addition to Moran, the URI/GSO scientists on the expedition included biological oceanographer Dr. David Smith, assistant dean Dr. John Farrell, and graduate student Matthew O’Regan. GSO geological oceanographer Dr. John King will also join in the effort during the post-expedition phase. Also on the expedition, as part of the URI ARMADA Project, was Narragansett teacher Kathy Couchon.

This expedition is the first ever to successfully recover long sediment cores from the high Arctic. Logistical challenges, such a surface ocean that’s more than 90% covered with thick (3 to 15 feet) ice that often drifts at 0.3 knots, has previously thwarted efforts to keep a drillship on a fixed location. The ACEX expedition used three icebreakers to meet this challenge, and the team successfully penetrated up to 430 meters below the seafloor in water depths of over 1300 meters.

In November, the ACEX team will travel to the core repository, in Bremen, Germany, to begin analyzing the cores and generating additional scientific results.

Source: University of Rhode Island

Research around the North Pole
The German research vessel Polarstern has returned today to Bremerhaven from the Arctic Sea. It has cruised as the first research vessel ever both the Northeast and the Northwest Passages and thereby circled the North Pole. The third part of the research vessel's 23rd Arctic expedition, operated by the Alfred Wegener Institute in the Helmholtz Association, started its journey on August 12th in Reykjavik and ended it on October 17th in Bremerhaven.
Unexplored Arctic region to be mapped
A scientific expedition this fall will map the unexplored Arctic seafloor where the U.S. and Canada may have sovereign rights over natural resources such as oil and gas and control over activities such as mining.
RV Polarstern on its way to East Siberian Sea
Bremerhaven, August 19th 2008. German research vessel Polarstern, operated by the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in the Helmholtz Association, transits the Northwest Passage for the first time. Polarstern left the port of Reykjavik on August 12th, sailed around Greenland on a southern course and is located right in the Northwest Passage. Its destination is the East Siberian Sea where geoscientific measurements at the junction between the Mendeleev Ridge and the East Siberian Shelf are at the focus of the participants of this expedition. The measurements striven for in the framework of the International Polar Year shall help to understand how the undersea ridges and basins were built. This expedition takes the researchers in 68 days around the North Pole because the return voyage is to lead via the Northeast Passage.
Successful series of measurements in Arctic sea ice
The German Research Vessel Polarstern had to prove its ice breaking capabilities in Arctic waters to gain data on two series of long-term research measurements. After working in regions up to latitude 82° N, Polarstern of the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in the Helmholtz Association will enter port in Reykjavik (Iceland) on August 10th.
Patagonian glacier yields clues for improved understanding of global climate change
Although ice cores obtained from Antarctica have now provided more than 800 000 years’ worth of climate records, analysis of them alone is insufficient for understanding the history of climatic interactions between the diverse regions of the world. Boreholes drilled during the 1990s on six glaciers in the tropical zone of the Andean Cordillera gave rise to a substantial collection of data on the changes and developments of the tropical climate of the Southern Hemisphere.
Scientists break record by finding northernmost hydrothermal vent field
Well inside the Arctic Circle, scientists have found black smoker vents farther north than anyone has ever seen before. The cluster of five vents – one towering nearly four stories in height – are venting water as hot as 570 F.
Evidence of volcanic eruptions deep beneath the Arctic Ocean
A research team led by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) has uncovered evidence of explosive volcanic eruptions deep beneath the ice-covered surface of the Arctic Ocean. Such violent eruptions of splintered, fragmented rock—known as pyroclastic deposits—were not thought possible at great ocean depths because of the intense weight and pressure of water and because of the composition of seafloor magma and rock.
Rocks under the northern ocean are found to resemble ones far south
Scientists probing volcanic rocks from deep under the frozen surface of the Arctic Ocean have discovered a special geochemical signature until now found only in the southern hemisphere. The rocks were dredged from the remote Gakkel Ridge, which lies under 3,000 to 5,000 meters of water; it is Earth’s most northerly undersea spreading ridge. The study appears in the May 1 issue of the leading science journal Nature.

Ground-Breaking Arctic Expedition

Related stories:

News discussion: