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Integrated Ocean Drilling Program Expedition 342 Paleogene Newfoundland Sediment Drifts (June-July 2012)
UCL scientists have participated in a number of Expeditions, including Leg 198, Leg 199, Exp 320, Exp 321, Exp 342 and Exp 359.
The aim of IODP Expedition 342 is to seek historical analogues to future climates in Earth's past and to better understand the dynamics of rapidly shifting environments by coring high accumulation rate sediments. To achieve this we primarily targeted Paleogene sedimentary succession in the NW Atlantic Ocean.
IODP 342 YouTube movies:
The Advanced Piston Corer recovers undisturbed continuous 9.5 m long core samples from sediments lying on the seafloor
The primary objective of IODP Expedition 342 is to answer a series of pressing questions about the rate and magnitude of past ecosystem changes:
- How similar are past abrupt climate changes to model expectations for the environmental changes triggered by human modification of Earth's environments?
- What are the consequences for Earth's biota of variations in magnitude or rate of change during abrupt events?
- Are there any ancient analogs to what we are doing to the planet now or has humanity launched a carbon cycle perturbation without geological analog?
- How long will perturbations similar to those of the "Anthropocene" last?
- Are we missing fundamental feedbacks in our bid to model the Earth's future under higher greenhouse gas forcing?
- What is the climate sensitivity to different rates or magnitudes of greenhouse gas forcing?