In May of 2012 we completed a month-long cruise in the Line Islands region aboard the R/V Marcus G. Langseth. The Line Islands are a relatively shallow chain of atolls created by hot spot volcanism and were targeted for sediment coring because the bathymetry indicated that the preservation potential for calcareous sediments might be high. Climatically, the area is situated beneath the seasonally migrating ITCZ and is influenced by ENSO making it an ideal area for paleoclimatic reconstructions aimed at evaluating shifts and changes in these two ocean-atmosphere phenomena. We recovered 41 sediment cores from the area, including three which were the focus of my doctoral research (ML1208-37BB, 31BB and 17PC). The cores are archived at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory Core Repository.
Please see these links for more information about the cruise:
Line Islands cruise data site hosted by Dr. Jean Lynch-Stieglitz of Georgia Tech
Click here for more about the cruise goals
My blog post from the Langseth on "Women Making Waves"