Integrated Paleontological, Geochemical, and                Paleoceanographic Studies on the Taconic Foreland Basin
{'Code': '06030101', 'Directorate': {'LongName': 'Directorate For Geosciences'}, 'Division': {'LongName': 'Division Of Earth Sciences'}}
{'SignBlockName': 'Jonathan H. Fink'}
Studies on a roughly five million year long Middle Ordovician sequence          in the Taconic Foreland Basin, New York are addressed to these                  questions: How did water temperature and oxygen content vary with depth         in going from a continental carbonate platform down the outer slope of          a subduction trench?  Was oceanic deep circulation driven by sinking of         warm, saline water from low-latitude platforms, as has been suggested           for this and other times of highest sea stand?  Twelve years'                   background work on the stratigraphy and paleontology of the sequence,           including an ongoing two-year feasibility study, has made a unique              opportunity for answering these and related questions from carbon and           oxygen isotopic studies on shells of bathymetrically wide-ranging               benthic invertebrates, and from carbon and sulfur analyses of                   sediments.  Relative water depth is measured in terms of position on            downslope transects along individual volcanic ash layers and, over              time, through gradient analysis of fossil assemblages.  Relative water          temperature will be determined from oxygen isotopic composition in one          articulate brachiopod (low-Mg calcite), two inarticulate brachiopods            (calcium phosphate), and other taxa selected for comparison.                    Evidently, texturally and chemically well-preserved calcareous                  brachiopods are isotopically little-altered: specimens from the same            sampling station yield tightly clustered  180 values similar to those           of the best-preserved Middle and Late Ordovician material.  The density         of puncta on the articulate brachiopod's shell (proportional to                 temperature in modern forms) is proportional to relative depth, and may         provide a check on 80O as a temperature measure.  Research will aid in          paleoceanographic reconstruction and in identification of possible              areas for resource exploration.
{'FirstName': 'John', 'LastName': 'Cisne', 'EmailAddress': 'cisne@geology.cornell.edu', 'StartDate': '07/01/1988', 'EndDate': None, 'RoleCode': 'Principal Investigator'}
{'Name': 'Cornell University', 'CityName': 'Ithaca', 'ZipCode': '148502820', 'PhoneNumber': '6072555014', 'StreetAddress': '373 Pine Tree Road', 'CountryName': 'United States', 'StateName': 'New York', 'StateCode': 'NY'}
{'Code': '1571', 'Text': 'SCEC'}
{'url': 'https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/download?DownloadFileName=1988&All=true', 'xml': '8804344.xml'}