Initial Reports of the Deep Sea Drilling Project - Volume 96

This volume covers Leg 96 of the cruises of the Drilling Vessel Glomar Challenger. Major objectives for drilling the Mississippi Fan on Leg 96 were to place the fan lobes into a time stratigraphic framework, to determine if the midfan channel is migratory in nature, to establish the lithological characteristics of the acoustical high-amplitude zone present near the bottom of the channel fill, to analyze if sand is transported to the lower fan and in which depositional mode it is emplaced, to confirm or modify existing fan models, and to determine the physical and chemical characteristics of these deep-sea fan deposits. Leg 96 of Deep Sea Drilling Project started on September 29, 1983 in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida and ended in Mobile, Alabama on November 8, 1983. The drilling program of the Glomar Challenger can be divided into six groups of sites: middle Mississippi Fan channel sites (621 and 622) and overbank sites (617 and 620), upper lower Mississippi Fan sites in the region of switching channels (Sites 623 and 624), lower Mississippi Fan sites where the channels terminate (Sites 614 and 615), a site in the slump area overlying the flank of the youngest fan lobe (Site 616), and intraslope basin sites (Sites 618 and 619). The main drilling objectives for the intraslope basins were to: 1. Establish the age of the sediments in the upper 200 m of the sediment column. 2. Obtain a high-resolution fossil record of the late Neogene and correlate that with oxygen-isotope data and with magnetic stratigraphy. 3. Establish the time of introduction of the brine in Orca Basin. 4. Establish the influence of the brine on the deposition of fine-grained sediments and compare those anoxic sediments with the underlying oxic deposits. 5. Establish the sediment types in Pigmy Basin in relation to the seismic facies and relate the findings to sealevel variations. 6. Attempt to relate stratigraphic data to diapiric activity. 7. Determine the physical and geotechnical characteristics of the sediments deposited under different conditions in these intraslope basins.