Research Highlights 2003 - Jurassic Quiet Zone Deeptow Magnetics

In 2002/2003 I was Co-chief Scientist with Prof. William Sager of Texas A&M University on a long cruise to the Pigafetta Basin in the Western Pacific to collect near-bottom magnetic profiles over the world's oldest ocean crust. The profiles also tie in the world's oldest oceanic crustal hole, ODP Hole 801C, to the magnetic reversal sequence. See previous work in 1992. A cruise report/synopsis of the 2002/2003 cruise is posted here. An initial results paper has been published in Geology: (Tivey et al., Geology, Vol.34, p. 789-792, 2006).

The survey was carried out using the NDSF vehicle DSL120A, a sidescan sonar vehicle that we were able to mount two magnetometers to. The two magnetometers are shown in the picture to the right. A small hand-sized (silver bottle) vector magnetometer was mounted on the wing of the tow body. A second (orange bottle), larger absolute field magnetometer supplied by Sang-Mook Lee (of KORDI and now at Seoul University) was towed 30 meters behind the tow body.

AGU 2003 Powerpoint presentation of results is available here:

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Last revised: 2007/5/1