Baffin Bay-Armstrong

Spatial and temporal characterization of the past history of the West Greenland Current and the west Greenland Ice Sheet since the last glacial maximum through geophysical surveying and piston coring of the West Greenland slope and shelf. We are proposing to core and survey along a south-north transect in Baffin Bay, focusing on four trough mouth fans. Each 24-hr period will alternate between surveying and coring/sampling efforts, with an effort to concentrate surveying during periods of low light. Sampling operations will focus on the collection of long piston cores and high-resolution sub-bottom surveys. Depending on the parameters of the Knudson Chirp system aboard the assigned vessel, we may bring an Edgetech Chirp 512i subbottom profiler. We require deck space and handling systems for deployment of large diameter gravity and piston corers and an MC-800 multicorer, as well as one lab van (MARSSAM MSCL system) and one refrigerated shipping container for core storage. We may also require deck space for the over-the-side Chirp system if it is needed; this system must be deployed from a steel cable with an 11000 lb working load. We also require sheltered deck space to split core sections after their physical properties have been measured in the MSCL van, and access to tables in the main lab for core description and archival. Ancillary to coring operations, we will collect water samples and CTD data with the shipboard CTD rosette to characterize modern surface and interior watermasses at each site.