Following Expedition 303, Expedition 306 is the second cruise of the North Atlantic paleoceanography study, which aims to generate a late Neogene–Quaternary chronostratigraphic template for North Atlantic climate proxies, allowing their correlation at a sub-Milankovitch scale and their export to other parts of the globe by using a paleointensity-assisted chronology (PAC).

        The overall aim of the North Atlantic paleoceanography study of Integrated Ocean Drilling Program Expedition 306 is to place late Neogene–Quaternary climate proxies in the North Atlantic into a chronology based on a combination of geomagnetic paleointensity, stable isotope, and detrital layer stratigraphies, and in so doing, generate integrated North Atlantic millennial-scale stratigraphies for the last few million years. To reach this aim, complete sedimentary sections were drilled by multiple advanced piston coring directly south of the central Atlantic "ice-rafted debris belt" and on the southern Gardar Drift. In addition to the North Atlantic paleoceanography study, a borehole observatory was successfully installed in a new 170 m deep hole close to Ocean Drilling Program Site 642, consisting of a CORK (circulation obviation retrofit kit) to seal the borehole from the overlying ocean, a thermistor string, and a data logger to document and monitor bottom water temperature variations through time.

        For more information: http://iodp.tamu.edu/scienceops/expeditions/exp306.html