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Mining the IODP Database for Relationships Between Lithology and Physical, Chemical, and Magnetic Properties
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  • Laurel Childress,
  • Gary Acton,
  • Vincent Percuoco,
  • Margaret Hastedt
Laurel Childress
Texas A&M University

Corresponding Author:childress@iodp.tamu.edu

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Gary Acton
Texas A&M University
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Vincent Percuoco
Texas A&M University
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Margaret Hastedt
Texas A&M University
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Abstract

During each International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP) expedition a vast array of data, typically amounting to hundreds of gigabytes to several terabytes of information, are collected from drill cores. These data include physical, chemical, and magnetic properties and digital images collected continuously or every few centimeters along the cores using automated track systems, as well as a variety of analyses conducted on discrete subsamples taken from the cores. Coring just since the start of Expedition 349 in January 2014 has recovered over 50 km of core, resulting in a very large amount of data, most of which are accessible from the IODP LIMS database. Some of the properties typically measured include P-wave velocity, density, magnetic susceptibility, natural remanent magnetization, natural gamma radiation, and visible spectral reflectance. In addition, the lithology of all cores is described based mainly on visual characteristics of the surface of the split cores, visual examination of smear slides and thin sections, and compositional or mineralogical information derived from geochemical analyses. Our goal in this study is to mine these data for interrelationships that would otherwise be difficult to assess given the way the data are partitioned by specific property within the database. In particular, we extract basic lithologic information from the complex array of descriptive information and then tie that information to all other observations in order to characterize the physical, chemical, and magnetic properties of a myriad of lithologies.