Site 1144 is located in the northern reaches of the South China Sea at 20°3.18´N, 117°25.14´E. It is on a sediment drift in 2037 m of water, with sediment sources originating from the Pearl, Mekong, and Red Rivers (Shipboard Scientific Party, 2000). It was cored along with four other sites in the northern South China Sea to study the evolution of the East Asian monsoon. The site was chosen as a high-sedimentation-rate site to study the paleomonsoon history over the mid- to late Pleistocene.
Three holes were cored at Site 1144, using both the advanced piston corer (APC) and extended core barrel (XCB): Hole 1144A to a depth of 453 meters below seafloor (mbsf), Hole 1144B to a depth of 452 mbsf, and Hole 1144C to a depth of 204 mbsf. A splice was constructed from the three holes that provided a continuous composite depth record from 0 to 235.41 meters composite depth (mcd). Beyond 235.41 mcd, there is a discontinuous floating splice from 235 to 519 mcd. The recovered sediments are hemipelagic, consisting of terrigenous material, biogenic carbonate, and opal. Accumulation rates are extremely high in the upper 250 mcd, averaging 870 m/m.y., and decrease to 370 m/m.y. in the lower 250-519 mcd (Shipboard Scientific Party, 2000).
Routine paleomagnetic cube samples (2 cm on a side) were collected at a rate of one to two samples per 1.5-m section. The samples were used on board for paleomagnetic analysis. These samples were then analyzed on shore for various mineral magnetic parameters to determine changes in the concentration, composition, and grain size of the magnetic fraction of the sediments.
1Solheid, P.A., Laj, C., and Banerjee, S.K., 2003. Data report: Mineral magnetic properties of sediments from Site 1144, northern South China Sea. In Prell, W.L., Wang, P., Blum, P., Rea, D.K., and Clemens, S.C. (Eds.), Proc. ODP, Sci. Results, 184 [Online]. Available from World Wide Web: <http://www-odp.tamu.edu/publications/184_SR/204/204.htm>. [Cited YYYY-MM-DD]
2Department of Geology and Geophysics, Institute for Rock Magnetism, 291 Shepherd Laboratories, 100 Union Street, SE, Minneapolis MN 55455, USA. Correspondence author: peat@umn.edu
3Laboratoire des Sciences du Climate et de l'Environment, Unite mixté CNRS/CEA, Avenue de la Terrasse, 91198 Gif-sir-Yvette Cédex, France.
Initial receipt: 10 August 2001
Acceptance: 18 December 2002
Web publication: 25 July 2003
Ms 184SR-204