Kristen St. John, Caroline Robinson, Ben Suranovic, and Cari Rand, James Madison University stjohnke@jmu.edu

Overview:  This exercise uses empirical data and Google Earth to explore the surficial distribution of marine sediments in the modern ocean. Over 4000 sites are plotted with access to original data. An associated student exercise has 3 parts:

1. A First Look at Marine Sediments
2. Exploring the Distribution of Marine Sediment Types on the Sea Floor
3. Refining Your Hypotheses  on Biogenic Marine Sediment Distributions

Audience: Intended for use in undergraduate Oceanography, Marine Geology, Paleoceanography, and Sedimentology Courses.

Download Teaching Materials and Tips:

• Student Exercise: marine sediments in GE v3.pdf
• KMZ files:
  • First Look_v3.kmz
  • Surficial-Sea-Floor-Sediment-Map-v4.kmz
  • Finding the CCD.kmz
  • World and Regional Sea Surface Temperature.kmz (from NASA)
  • Chlorophyll.kmz (from NASA and National Geographic)
• Tips for Instructors:
  • WhatIsACore.pdf (from IODP)
  • How to pull up core in GE_GSA2.pdf
  • Making Big GeoData Accessible for Education_GSA2.pdf
  • GSA Presentation 2014 StJohn.ppt

References and Acknowledgements:

• Data used in this exercise comes from the following research programs and databases:
  • The Deep Sea Drilling Project (DSDP, http://www.deepseadrilling.org/about.htm): global data
  • The Ocean Drilling Program (ODP, http://www-odp.tamu.edu/): global data
  • The International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP, http://www.iodp.org/): global data
  • The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI, http://www.whoi.edu/): North Atlantic data (global data to be added soon)
  • Curators of Marine and Lacustrine Geological Samples Consortium. The Index to Marine and Lacustrine Geological Samples (IMLGS). National Geophysical Data Center, NOAA. doi:10.7289/V5H41PB8 [October 15 2014]. (http://dx.doi.org/doi:10.7289/V5H41PB8.)
• Development of this exercise is supported by the NSF-funded GEODE project.
• This exercise supplements and compliments an NSF-funded exercise on Seafloor Sediments (http://serc.carleton.edu/NAGTWorkshops/intro/activities/29154.html , which is an open-access chapter from St. John, K., et al., (2012) Reconstructing Earth’s Climate History: Inquiry-based Exercises for Lab and Class. Wiley-Blackwell, 485p.
• Development of this exercise has greatly benefited from assistance by Cari Rand and Mladen Dordevic, James Madison University.