Basement ages and basement depths in the eastern equatorial pacific from Deep Sea Drilling Project Legs 5, 8, 9, and 16

Recent literature contains numerous references to basement ages and basement depths determined by the Deep Sea Drilling Project. The data are derived from a variety of sources, many of them inadequately documented or preliminary, and are not uncommonly inaccurate or conflicting. In this paper we present tabulations of basement ages and depths from DSDP Legs 5, 8, 9, and 16 in the eastern equatorial Pacific, refer them to the latest biostratigraphic time scale, and document and discuss their error limits. We recommend that in future use of this type of data a similar practice be adopted and that the precise source of data, time scale used, and procedures for determining ages and errors be clearly identified in order to avoid confusion. Based on the data presented here, we also give the relations between basement age, distance from the spreading center, and basement depth. The errors inherent in the data cause these relations to be very general and to have less resolution than ascribed to them by some previous investigators.