Five holes were drilled at Site 996: Holes 996A, 996B, and 996C were drilled beneath an active chemosynthetic community, and Holes 996D and 996E were drilled about 40 m away, on the flanks of the community. A single lithostratigraphic unit was recognized, based on the combined observations from all five holes. This unit extends from the seafloor to 63.0 mbsf and is aged from early Pleistocene to Holocene and comprises nannofossil-bearing silty clay and nannofossil-rich clay, with up to 2-m-thick beds of partially cemented shell fragments associated with the biological community at Holes 996A, 996B, and 996C (Shipboard Scientific Party, 1996e).
Susceptibility at Site 996 shows no near-surface peak (Fig. 5), and DJH remains uniformly low (Fig. 6), never exceeding 0.02 except near the base of Hole 996A, where DJH reaches 0.03 at 59.6 mbsf. Coercivity spectra from throughout Site 996 are usually left skewed, but include a substantial fraction extending to high coercivities (Fig. 9). This may reflect the presence of SD greigite, or alternatively may indicate survival of some detrital hematite. Resistance of hematite to reductive diagenesis in greigite-bearing sediments has been reported by Reynolds et al. (1994).