High-resolution multi-beam bathymetry, 3D and 2D seismic reflection profiles from the South China Sea are used to investigate the morphology, characteristics, origin and implications to petroleum systems of recurrent slope failure in the Qiongdongnan Basin, northern South China Sea. Seven Late Miocene-Holocene mass-transport deposits (MTDs) and numerous submarine canyons were identified on the ...

Leg 178 will drill eight sites off the Pacific margin of the Antarctic Peninsula to provide a highresolution record of Antarctic continental climate over the past 6-10 m.y. and a direct check on the presumed glacio-eustatic origin of global sea-level change over the same period. Moreover, it is an essential preliminary to the more difficult task of extracting the complete Cenozoic record of Ant...

The Antarctic contribution to sea-level rise has long been uncertain. While regional variability in ice dynamics has been revealed, a picture of mass changes throughout the continental ice sheet is lacking. Here, we use satellite radar altimetry to measure the elevation change of 72% of the grounded ice sheet during the period 1992-2003. Depending on the density of the snow giving rise to the o...

The rise of plate tectonics theory in the 1960s contributed to a revival long-neglected idea continental drift, and revolutionized Earth sciences by shifting people’s perception that continents were fixed belief they constant state motion.

Mass-transport deposits reveal something of the timing, source areas and depositional processes that contributed to the evolution of the New Jersey continental margin. Many of the mass-transport deposits rest upon prominent stratal surfaces and sequence boundaries permitting evaluation of the relationship between mass wasting and eustatic change. Five distinct mass-transport facies representati...

A unique set of geochemical pore-water data, characterizing the sulfate reduction and uppermost methanogenic zones, has been collected at the Blake Ridge (offshore southeastern North America) from Ocean Drilling Program (ODP) Leg 164 cores and piston cores. The δ13C values of dissolved CO2 (ΣCO2) are as 13C-depleted as –37.7‰ PDB (Site 995) at the sulfate-methane interface, reflecting a substan...

Fundamental characteristics of the climate system during the most recent precessional cycle of the Earth’s orbit around the Sun consist of the final expansion of land ice to its maximum extent, the subsequent episode of deglaciation, and the variations of global sea level that accompanied these events. In order to address the important issue of the variation of continental ice volume and relate...

Reconstructions are presented documenting the relative motion of the Australia. Antarctic and Pacific plates since Chron 27 (61.1 Ma). In addition to the motion of the major plates, the reconstructions show the relative motion between East and West Antarctica and the continental fragments that make up the South Tasman Rise. Recent observations that are used in making these reconstructions inclu...

The rivers are the main sources both of sediments and pollutants. Their irregular supply from different catchment areas controls the nature of terrigenous sedimentation and contamination of the Black Sea. The role of aerosols in the Black Sea has not yet been estimated. As a result of studies in the Black Sea pre-Caucasian zone, it is revealed that fluxes of sediments and pollutants display a w...