A principal objective for Ocean Drilling Program (ODP) Leg 184 Site 1144 (20.05°N, 117.42°E; water depth = 2037 m) (Fig. F1) was to recover a complete sequence of high-sedimentation-rate hemipelagic sediments from the middle and late Pleistocene to address fundamental questions regarding the paleoenvironment in the South China Sea (SCS) and to reconstruct the history of the East Asian Monsoon on orbital to sub-Milankovitch timescales over the last 1 m.y.
To date, only a few published paleoceanographic records from Southeast Asian marginal seas provide a time resolution sufficient to resolve high-frequency variations in local ocean circulation and paleoclimate. The high accumulation rates at Site 1144 (Fig. F1), retrieved from a thick hemipelagic sediment drift (Sarnthein et al., 1994; Shipboard Scientific Party, 2000) on the northern continental slope of the SCS, offer an unprecedented opportunity to reconstruct Quaternary monsoon variations on millennial to centennial timescales.
Our primary goals are (1) to provide a detailed and reliable high-resolution stable isotope stratigraphy for the northern SCS over the last 1 m.y.; (2) to uncover stratigraphic gaps in centennial to millennial climate oscillations during the Brunhes Chron, with special focus on the last six glacial and interglacial periods; and (3) to compare paleoclimatic variability inferred from stable isotopes of planktonic foraminifers during marine isotope Stages (MIS) 1–5 with the Greenland ice core GISP2 record and thus establish the links between marine and terrestrial records.
Additionally, this stratigraphy forms the paleoclimatic framework and precise age model for a number of paleoceanographic and paleoclimatic studies published in this volume (Tamburini et al., Boulay et al.) and elsewhere (Higginson et al., 2003).