Santa Barbara Basin

The Santa Barbara Basin is a natural laboratory for Dr. Thunell to pursue his research interests of  reconstructing paleoceanographic and paleoclimatic conditions using deep sea sediments, measuring the production and flux of sediments in the ocean and the calibration of paleoclimate proxies.  The varved sediments accumulating in the basin contain a record of annual to decadal scale variability of both the marine and continental climates. Extracting this climate signal and providing quantitative records of past climate change requires a set of well-calibrated climate proxies.  In August of 1993 we initiated an integrated sediment trapping and environmental monitoring program designed to identify and calibrate the most appropriate proxies for use in this region.  Eight years later we are still at it!  The core of the field program is a deep sea mooring with two sediment traps.  The sediment traps provide us with a continuous record of material falling to the seafloor at a two week sampling resolution.  In addition to the trapping component, CTD casts are taken every two weeks near the mooring location.  This allows us to monitor temporal changes in the surface waters and provides us with the necessary temperature data for ground truthing our various temperature proxies.  In addition, box and gravity core material will be used  to directly compare our trap records to recently deposited sediments.  Please follow the links below to learn more about the project, the people involved and the specific research they are pursuing.