ninetyeast ridge
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Abstract. Among various climate drivers, direct evidence for the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) control of sediment supply on the millennium scale is lacking, and the changes in ITCZ migration demonstrated in paleoclimate records need to be better investigated. Here, we use clay minerals and Sr-Nd isotopes obtained from a gravity core on the Ninetyeast Ridge to track the corresponding source variations and analyze the relationship between terrestrial material supplementation and climatic changes. On the glacial-interglacial scale, chemical weathering weakened during the North Atlantic cold climate periods, and falling sea level hindered the transport of smectite into the study area due to the exposure of islands. However, the influence of the South Asian monsoon on the sediment supply was not obvious on the millennium scale. We suggest that the north-south migration of the ITCZ controlled the rainfall in Myanmar and further directly determined the supply of clay minerals on the millennium scale because the transport of smectite was highly connected with ITCZ location. Furthermore, the regional shift of the ITCZ induced an abnormal increase in the smectite percentage during the late Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) in our records. The smectite percentage in the studied core is similar to distinct ITCZ records in different time periods, revealing that regional changes in the ITCZ were significantly obvious, and that the ITCZ is not a simple N-S displacement and closer connections occurred between the Northern-Southern Hemispheres in the eastern Indian Ocean during the late Last Glacial Maximum (LGM).

The Osborne Plateau is a large intraplate elevation in the eastern part of the Indian Ocean, which has been poorly studied by geological and geophysical methods. In cruise SO258/1 on RV Sonne, were collected new data with Parasound seismic profiling and multi-beam echo sounder survey. Fractures in the sedimentary cover, which extend to the bottom surface, indicate on high neotectonic activity in the area of the Osborne Plateau. It can continue up to the present, as well as in the adjacent segment of the Ninetyeast Ridge, where strong earthquakes are recorded. Two reflectors in the upper part of the sedimentary cover mark global regressive changes in the World Ocean level at the boundary of the Miocene / Pliocene and Pliocene / Pleistocene. The reflector in the sediments at the boundary of the Lower / Upper Pliocene is associated with a change in the regional hydrodynamic regime at the time in the eastern Indian Ocean. The rocks dragged on the Osborn Knoll are identical to volcanic rocks of the Ninetyeast Ridge, confirming their assumed genetic similarity, but they are more identical to basalts of the Kerguelen plateau. Extremely modified vitroclastic tuffs appear to have been formed as a result of explosive volcanic eruptions of alkaline basalts or foidites in subaeral or relatively shallow water conditions and represent the most recent eruption in the region.

New geological-geophysical data were obtained during Cruise SO258 leg 1 of the R/V SONNE carried out in the eastern part of the Indian Ocean in 2017. This expedition was part of the research project INGON, which is a collaboration between the Alfred Wegener Institute Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI) and the GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel. Multibeam echo-sounder bathymetry, seismic reflection profiling and rock sampling were done on 3 areas on 85° E Ridge and close to the Ninetyeast Ridge. The paper describes the first results.