CONTINGENCY PROGRAM
(Kuroshio Current)
A long record of the Kuroshio Current of the past 2 m.y. will offer a unique opportunity to study the roles of the Kuroshio in relation to sea-level fluctuation, global climatic variation, local tectonic development, and terrestrial environmental changes in East Asia at different time scales. The Kuroshiro Current site is designed to: (1) identify patterns of long-term climate change associated with the western Pacific boundary current during the past 2.0 m.y.; (2) examine the western Pacific component of long-term changes due to orbital forcing in the mid-Pleistocene (0.7 Ma) when Earth's climate system switched from a regime of dominant 41-k.y. cycles to 100-k.y. cycles; (3) explore any long-term El Niño/La Niña type of climate oscillation in the low-latitude Pacific over the late Pleistocene glacial-interglacial cycles by comparing the Kuroshio record to other Pacific ODP records; and (4) document the temporal and spatial variability of millennial climate changes in the Kuroshio.
The proposed drilling Site KS-1 is located at 24°48.24'N, 122°30.00'E in 1270 m deep water at the intersection of three seismic reflection profiles shot by the R/VM Ewing in 1995 (Fig. 11). The selection of this site is based on data collected recently during several international cooperative programs and multidisciplinary integrated programs such as Kuroshio Edge Exchange Processes (KEEP) and Southernmost Part of Okinawa Trough (SPOT) (Lee et al., 1998).