ODP Site 983 and Site 984 , located on drift sites south of Iceland, have yielded high fidelity (u-channel) records of geomagnetic secular variation and geomagnetic paleointensity in the Brunhes Chron, and of polarity transitions at the Brunhes-Matuyama boundary and the top of the Jaramillo Subchron. This proposal is to extend the record through the Matuyama Chron at Site 983 and Site 984 where sedimentation rates are 12-17 cm/kyr, and to embark on the study of Brunhes-Matuyama records from sites 980, 981 and 982 located on neighboring sediment drifts. The objectives are to correlate geomagnetic secular variation records and paleointensity records to the oxygen isotope records, which are already available for most of these sites, and to study polarity transitions records from the top of the Olduvai to the Brunhes-Matuyama boundary including the Cobb Mt. and other short events (Gilsa?) which appear in the shipboard pass-through records. All studies will be carried out on 2*2 cm u-channels affording much improved resolution over the shipboard data and allowing measurement of laboratory induced magnetizations (ARM, IRM) for constructing of paleointensity and grain size proxies. The data will allow further evaluation of the potential of paleointensity records as a means of millennial-scale correlation and will yield new high resolution records of geomagnetic field behavior in the Matuyama Chron.
