This research will further develop a three-dimensional chronostratigraphic framework of a carbonate platform, and, secondly, to extract a platform flooding history (relative sea level curve) from a high energy, windward bank margin. The extremely successful magnetostratigraphic dating of four 60-m cores from Little Bahama Bank is beginning to unravel the nature of platform deposition. This dating technique has renewed interest and understanding of carbonate platform depositional models and has extended age control beyond the Late Pleistocene and Holocene. The new Little Bahama Bank chronostratigraphy reveals a considerably different depositional sequence than proposed from just lithostratigraphy. This project will complete the remaining cores from the platform and extend downward the existing reversal stratigraphy to achieve the first three-dimensional platform history. The second part of this project will consist of dating three cores from the eastern side of Great Bahama Bank, part of a high-energy/bank interior facies that preserves a record of platform flooding (regional sea level curve) events.
