The primary goals of Ocean Drilling Program Leg 174A at the New Jersey continental margin were to date sequence boundaries of Oligocene to Pleistocene age as precisely as possible, to place constraints on amplitudes and rates of sea level change that may have been responsible for unconformity development, to assess the relationships between depositional facies and sequence architecture, and to provide a baseline for future studies. As of September 2002, postcruise activity by shipboard participants beyond the release of the Leg 174A Initial Reports volume in 1998 has resulted in the publication of 22 articles in the open literature (see "Leg-Related Citations" in the volume table of contents), along with six contributions included in this Scientific Results volume. The published articles deal with aspects of sequence stratigraphy and borehole geophysics, biostratigraphy and biofacies, oxygen isotope chemostratigraphy, slope failure, glauconite and other clay minerals, and geochemistry. Contributions in this volume summarize data on nannofossils, Pleistocene ichnofabrics, heavy minerals, grain size, carbon isotopes and aqueous geochemistry. The overall picture that emerges from these studies generally conforms with summaries included at the end of each of the site chapters in the Leg 174A Initial Reports volume, but with new details revealed by additional analysis of cores, samples, and logs, and with new perceptions about the evolution of the margin provided by the geophysical framework, modeling, and closely coordinated research in the New Jersey Coastal Plain (Miller et al., 1998). To the extent that Leg 174A shipboard scientists have now had the opportunity to publish their own perspectives in the context of their individual expertise, differences of opinion have arisen in spite of efforts at collaboration. In the summary that follows, we attempt to take stock of the current state of knowledge. A comprehensive synthesis of results from Leg 174A is being prepared for journal publication.
1Christie-Blick, N., and Austin, J.A., Jr., 2002. Synopsis of Leg 174A postcruise science. In Christie-Blick, N., Austin, J.A., Jr., and Malone, M.J. (Eds.), Proc. ODP, Sci. Results, 174A [Online]. Available from World Wide Web: <http://www-odp.tamu.edu/publications/174A_SR/synopsis/synopsis.htm> [Cited YYYY-MM-DD]
2Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University, PO Box 1000, 61 Route 9W, Palisades NY 10964, USA. ncb@ldeo.columbia.edu
3Institute for Geophysics, University of Texas, 4412 Spicewood Springs Road, Building 600, Austin TX 78759, USA.
Initial receipt: 24 July 2002
Acceptance: 24 July 2002
Web publication: 16 September 2002
Ms 174ASR-160