This award is part of a joint research program between the University of Texas at Austin and the University of Toronto. The overall objective of the research is a detailed record of the physical sedimentology and micropaleontology of the Yakataga Formation, Gulf of Alaska which can provide a high-resolution record of late Cenozoic glacial and climatic history for the northern hemisphere. In addition it provides the opportunity to improve facies models of glacially influence continental margin sedimentation. This award is to support the paleonenvironmental analysis of the Yakataga Formation as based on the analysis of foraminiferal biofacies. The proposed research will analyze samples from detailed measured and logged sections in the Gulf of Alaska Tertiary Province. This analysis will provide insights into climate history, paleobathymetry, chronostratigraphy and water mass structure of the Gulf of Alaska during the deposition of the glaciomarine Yakataga Formation. This paleoenvironmental information will be combined with detailed lithofacies analyses to produce a high-resolution record (on the order of 10 Ka) of late Miocene to Holocene glacial history for the Gulf of Alaska. This record can then be compared with detailed studies of coeval sections in the North Atlantic/Canadian Arctic to document the differential histories of these two areas during the late Cenozoic. The identified research is particularly timely given the proposed ODP drilling in the north Pacific during ca. 1990.
