More than four years have passed since the completion of Ocean Drilling Program (ODP) Leg 172. Since then, the shipboard and other scientists have begun to complete their studies of cores recovered and data resulting from the cruise. The purpose of this paper is to give a brief overview of the main postcruise findings from papers published, in press, and submitted since the end of the cruise. Most of these are contained within this volume or are in a special issue of Marine Geology, edited by Leg 172 Co-Chief Scientist Dr. Domenico Rio. A smaller number of papers have been submitted to other journals. In addition, many of the research projects are still in their infancy and so a number of Leg 172 publications can be expected over the next few years.
Not surprisingly, the major themes of postcruise research are similar to the major themes identified by shipboard investigations. For convenience, the postcruise contributions to journal literature are grouped below according to the following disciplines: sedimentology and sediment chemistry, paleoceanography, and paleomagnetism.
A secondary purpose of this paper is to provide a current list of references that will help guide others in their search for Leg 172 literature. Realizing that our list will quickly become dated, we direct the readers to an Internet citations list at http://www-odp.tamu.edu/publications/pubs_ct.htm. This list will continue to be updated by the ODP Publication Services staff to include future Leg 172 publications.
No overview of Leg 172 literature would be complete without at least mentioning the large amount of information available in the Leg 172 Initial Results volume (Keigwin, Rio, Acton, et al., 1998). Below, we borrow heavily from that volume in providing some key pieces of background information to aid the reader with this and other Leg 172 publications. Besides containing the observations and interpretations made by the shipboard scientists, a wealth of raw data are stored on CD-ROMs in the back pocket of that volume. In addition, most of the data collected during the cruise have now been migrated to ODP's databases and are available on the Internet at http://www-odp.tamu.edu/database/, with logging data available at http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/BRG/ODP/DATABASE/.
1Keigwin, L.D., and Acton, G.D., 2001. An overview of Leg 172 literature. In Keigwin, L.D., Rio, D., Acton, G.D., and Arnold, E. (Eds.), Proc. ODP, Sci. Results, 172 [Online]. Available from World Wide Web: <http://www-odp.tamu.edu/publications/172_SR/synopsis/synopsis.htm> [Cited YYYY-MM-DD]
2Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, McLean Laboratory, MS 8, 360 Woods Hole Road, Woods Hole MA 02543, USA. lkeigwin@whoi.edu
3Ocean Drilling Program, Texas A&M University, 1000 Discovery Drive, College Station TX 77845-9547, USA.
Initial
receipt: 3 July 2001
Acceptance: 3 July 2001
Web publication: 9 August 2001
Ms 172-208