IMAGES - MD 101 à bord du Marion-Dufresne du 29 mai au 11 juillet 1995. A coring cruise of the R/V Marion Dufresne in the North Atlantic Ocean and Norwegian Sea

IMAGES coordinated a first international cruise in June and July 1995 over the North Atlantic and Norwegian sea on board the French RN Mm'ion Dufresne (MD 10 I, Brest - Stornoway (Lewis Island) - St-Pierre - Azores - Marseille). Its main scientific objective was the collection of giant piston cores on rapidly sedimenting drifts and continental margins of the North Atlantic ocean and Norwegian Sea, along the track of the main thermohaline circulation. The cruise crossed the North-East Atlantic margins, the Feni Drift, the Scottish, North Faeroes and Norwegian margins (to nON), the Iceland South-East margins, the Gardar Drift, the NAMOC Channel, the Newfoundland margin, the Bermuda rise, the mid Atlantic ridge, and the Azores and Iberian margins. Additional objectives covered: - the contribution of Mediterranean waters to the North Atlantic intermediate waters, with 5 cores recovered across the slopes of the Iberian margin; - the evolution of the NAMOC channel, in the deep North-West Atlantic basin, in relation to the growths and decays of the Laurentide ice sheet (8 Kullenberg and gravity cores). This was the maiden cruise of the new Mm'ion Dujresne, just 2 weeks out from her Le Havre shipyard. The ship had a very small number of problems, taking into account the number of things which were not ready just a few days before the departure. Two days were lost for engine problems. 70 scientists, students and technicians from 22 institutions (13 countries) participated to at least one of the three legs. 43 cores (mean length over 30 meters) have been retrieved during the cruise, described and measured for magnetic susceptibility, p-wave velocity, y density and spectral light reflectance. The longest core, MD 95-2036 (52.64 m) was retrieved at 4461 m water depth on the Bermuda Rise. It covers about 150 kyr with a sedimentation rate over 30 cm/kyr. The Calypso corer worked properly, once a few problems encountered at the be"innin" of the cruise had been solved (i.e. sliced or imploded PVC liner). This report presents preliminary results, mostly obtained on board: core descriptions, physical properties and micro-paleontological stratigraphy. Color reflectance (between 40° and 55°N) and magnetic susceptibility (between 50° and 700N) have been used for direct tuning of the time scales by cyclo-stratigraphy in the precession and obliquity bands. Ocean-wide correlations have been established over the last 250 kyr