Publications

The thick sequence of Miocene lava flows exposed on Steens Mountain in southeastern Oregon is well known for containing a detailed record of a reversed‐to‐normal geomagnetic polarity transition. Paleomagnetic samples were obtained from the sequence for a combined study of the directional and intensity variations recorded; the paleointensity study is reported in a companion paper. This...

We carried out an extensive paleointensity study of the 15.5±0.3 m.y. Miocene reversed‐to‐normal polarity transition recorded in lava flows from Steens Mountain (south central Oregon). One hundred eighty‐five samples from the collection whose paleodirectional study is reported by Mankinen et al. (this issue) were chosen for paleointensity investigations because of their low viscosity...

The 87Sr/86Sr ratios and the activity ratios of 234U/238U and 230Th/238U have been measured in dolomites from a 168-m-deep core taken on the island of San Salvador, Bahamas. These data suggest two periods of dolomitization. The first episode dolomitized Miocene age sediments during the latest Miocene, and the second dolomitized the Pliocene portion of the core and was still active as...

In contrast to the rarity of such observations a decade ago, seismic reflecting and refracting horizons are now being observed to Moho depths under continental shelves in a number of places. These observations provide knowledge of the entire crustal thickness from the shoreline to the oceanic crust on passive margins and supplement Consortium for Continental Reflection Profiling (COCORP)...

High-resolution, single-channel and multichannel seismic-reflection profiles in the New York Bight provide 7 crossings of a 50-km-long fault that trends north-northeast for 30 km from its southern end, then bends northeast, and may continue northward beneath Long Island. Displacement, which is consistently down to the west, decreases upsection and suggests a growth fault. Dip of the...

A major fault cutting through most of the crust can be identified and mapped on the Long Island platform using multichannel seismic reflection profiles and magnetic data. The fault, here called the Block Island fault (BIF), strikes north-northeast, dips westward at low angle, and does not resemble the thin-skinned thrust faulting observed in the foreland of the Appalachians. The BIF is...

Seismic profiles and bathymetric contours reveal a drowned barrier spit on Jeffreys Ledge off Cape Ann, Massachusetts. Seaward-dipping internal reflectors indicate that a regressive barrier formed during the early Holocene low sea-level stillstand. Preservation of the barrier spit may have been favored by its large size (as much as 20 m thick), by an ample sediment supply from...

Rapid shoreline regression and transgression along the western Gulf of Maine between 13,000 and 9000 years B.P. are inferred to have produced a nearshore marine environment low in biologic productivity. Paleo-Indians living near the coast of the Gulf were probably forced to rely on nonmarine resources landward of the late-glacial marine limit. Thus, Paleo-Indian sites of the time period...

No abstract available.

The response of an ocean bottom seismometer (OBS) to a transient pull that excites the natural OBS-sediment coupling resonance can be modeled as a mass-spring-dashpot system in which the resonant frequency and damping are functions of instrument mass and bearing radius and of the physical properties of the sediment (primarily the shear modulus). For the very soft sediments sometimes...

Two three-component ocean bottom seismometers and a current meter were deployed a few hundred meters apart on the southern Blake Plateau off the United States eastern coast to study the effect of near-bottom currents on the background noise level of seismometers. Although analysis of the data is limited somewhat by instrumental problems, the increase in current speed, which ranged from 2...

The new International Geomagnetic Reference Field (IGRF) model of the main geomagnetic field for 1980 is based heavily on measurements from the MAGSAT satellite survey. Assessment of the accuracy of the new model, as a description of the main field near the Earth's surface, is important because the accuracy of models derived from satellite data can be adversely affected by the magnetic...