Sites 1006, 1008, and 1009 are located on the western slope of the Great Bahama Bank (Fig. 1). Site 1006 (24°23.989´N, 79°27.451´W), the most distal site in the Bahamas Transect, is situated ~30 km from the platform edge in 658 m of water (Eberli, Swart, Malone, et al., 1997). A 717.3-m-thick Pleistocene to middle Miocene sequence of mixed pelagic and bank-derived carbonates with varying and lesser amounts of siliciclastic, clay-sized material was recovered.
Sites 1008 and 1009 are located ~100 km to the south of the main Bahamas Transect (Fig. 1). Site 1009 (23°36.84´N, 79°3.00´W) is positioned ~4.5 km from the platform edge in 308 m of water. Site 1008 (23°36.64´N, 70°5.01´W) is located 2.7 km more basinward than Site 1009 in 437 m of water. Thick, expanded Pleistocene sequences of periplatform sediments were recovered at both sites. Based on shipboard biostratigraphy, the age at the base of the section at Site 1009 [226.1 meters below seafloor (mbsf)] is ~1.44 Ma, and a similar age is observed at the bottom of the recovered sequence (134.5 mbsf) at Site 1008 (e.g., Eberli, Swart, Malone, et al., 1997).
Periplatform sediments are important components of both modern and ancient carbonate depositional systems (McIlreath and James, 1978; Cook and Mullins, 1983; Enos and Moore, 1983). However, relative to deep-sea oozes and neritic (platform) carbonates, we know much less about the diagenesis of periplatform sediments. In this report, I document the detailed mineralogic and geochemical analyses of sediments from these three sites. Discussion and interpretation of these results will be presented in a future publication.