Funds will support an international workshop devoted to the organization of an international program (ALBICORE) to investigate global patterns of climatic-oceanic response to orbital forcing in the Mid-Cretaceous greenhouse (ca. 100 million years BP). Our work in the Italian Albian has revealed sedimentary and paleontological oscillations with periods corresponding to those of the orbital variations. Such responses of different sorts have been recorded in other Mesozoic stratigraphic sequences, but remain isolated cases. Greenhouse climates responded to orbital forcing, but application to a better understanding of Climates and Geochronology calls for developing a global picture of the responses for a given time. ALBICORE is designed to foment international work on such a time-slice - the Albian sub-zone of Ticinella praeticinensis. The workshop seeks (1) to generate interest by showing what has been accomplished, and the promise of extending such work; (2) to demonstrate the multidisciplinary techniques (sedimentological, paleontological, geochemical and geophysical) that we have developed and found useful, and to discuss alternatives and improvements; and (3) to develop an overall plan of procedure, including (a) a set of tactical ACTION GROUPS that would undertake the drilling of cores and their analysis, (b) ADVISORY COMMITTEES that would serve to advise on techniques and would be helpful in finding laboratory facilities, and (c) a STEERING COMMITTEE that would coordinate the global effort.
