BOSCORF science
The BOSCORF core collection provides an important resource for researchers investigating climate change, conditions in past oceans and sedimentary processes. A large number of scientific papers have appeared in the scientific literature over the last few years that have used cores stored in the BOSCORF repository to gain fundamental insights into the past and present workings of the natural world. Some recent studies that have used BOSCORF cores are highlighted below.
Researchers have used BOSCORF cores to show that the eastern Mediterranean was substantially affected by a distinct cycle of cooling events, often of abrupt onset, throughout the Holocene. These cooling events typically lasted several centuries and were associated with increased aridity in the Levantine and North Africa region. Several of these episodes appear to coincide with large-scale human population movements and indigenous cultural developments, suggesting these more arid periods played an important role in the development of early human societies in North Africa, Egypt and the Near East. (Cashford, J.S.L., et al., Mediterranean Marine Science, 2, 45-55).

BOSCORF cores have been used to compare palaeoclimate proxy records from Central Greenland and the Aegean Sea to offer new insights into the causes, timing and mechanisms of Holocene atmosphere-ocean interactions. This research has shown a direct atmospheric link between Aegean seasurface temperature and high-latitude climate. (Rohling, E.J., et al., Climate Dynamics, 18, 587-593).

A consortium of UK university researchers have used the BOSCORF Multi-Sensor Core Logger to correlate cores recovered from two boreholes drilled through the Kimmeridge Clay Formation (Upper Jurassic) in Southern Dorset with the downhole geophysical logs made at the boreholes. The cores logged by the BOSCORF MSCL represent the first complete section through the entire Formation close to the type section and facilitated core-to-exposure correlation. The goal of this project was to understand the principal controls on this key episode of petroleum source-rock formation, as the Kimmeridge Clay has long been recognised as the major source rock for North Sea oil. (Morgans-Bell, H.S., et al., Geological Magazine, 138, 511-539).

Researchers have used BOSCORF facilities to record the first set of recorded measurements of P-wave velocity and density for waterlogged wood. This work has been conducted in response to the requirement to develop new techniques for non-destructive surveys of submerged archaeological sites. This research suggests that acoustic methods can be used to identify wooden artefacts and may be sufficiently sensitive to determine their degradation state. Such techniques may have a significant impact on the management and conservation of our submerged cultural heritage. (Dix, J.K., et al., Acoustical Oceanography, 23, 299-305).

Researchers have used a BOSCORF core from the Sicily Strait in the Mediterranean Sea (LC07) to improve the presently restricted global geomagnetic paleointensity dataset for the late Matuyama Chron which is essential for evaluating the long-term behaviour of the Earth's geomagnetic field. The data provided by core LC07 are unprecedented from the Mediterranean basin where only a paleointensity record for the last 80 kyr was available previously. This research demonstrates the global importance of some of the cores held in the BOSCORF repository (Dinares-Turell, J., et al., Earth and Planetary Science Letters, 194, 327-341).

Researchers have used a BOSCORF core (LC21) to study long-term variability in deep water ventilation during the late glacial and Holocene in the eastern Mediterranean. This research suggests the isolation of intermediate/deep water preceded the start of sapropel formation by up to 1.5 kyr. This research has provided a possible explanation for the previously major unresolved problem in sapropel studies, namely the source of nutrient supply required for export productivity to reach levels needed for sustained sapropel deposition. This study suggests that nutrients accumulating in stagnant Aegean Sea basins for 1-1.5 kyr and these accumulated resources were utilised in the deposition of the S1 sapropel. Pelagic long piston cores in the Mediterranean taken during Marion Dufresne Cruise 81 held in BOSCORF now form internationally-recognised reference cores for the Mediterranean Late Quaternary and Holocene succession. A number of studies of core LC21 have now been published and it now forms an important reference core for the Mediterranean Sea (Cashford, J.S.L., et al., Palaeoceanography, 17, 14.1-14.12.

Researchers have used BOSCORF cores to study in detail the turbidite depositional architecture of the Moroccan turbidite system on the north-west African margin which extends 1500 km from the head of the Agadir Canyon to the Madeira Abyssal Plain, extending across three large interconnected deep-water basins - one of the longest turbidite systems in the world. Excellent control provided by BOSCORF cores has allowed individual turbidites to be correlated in all three basins. Large volume turbidites within the Moroccan turbidite system were deposited at oxygen isotope stage boundaries and do not appear to be specifically connected to sea-level lowstands or highstands. This contrasts with the classic fan model which suggests that most turbidites are deposited during lowstands of sealevel. This research has also confirmed that the three largest turbidites on the Madeira Abyssal Plain were deposited during the largest fluctuations in sealevel, suggesting a link between the volume of sediment input and the magnitude of sea-level change (Wynn R.B., et al., Sedimentology, 49, 669-695).


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