IODP DIGITAL REFERENCE FOR SMEAR SLIDE ANALYSIS OF MARINE MUD PART 2: METHODOLGY AND ATLAS OF BIOGENIC COMPONENTS

The smear-slide technique is critical to microscopic characterization of unlithified fine-grained marine sediments and the determination of lithologic names. Biogenic components are minor to major components of marine mud, ranging to marl and ooze where dominant. With funding from the Consortium for Ocean Leadership we created a self-instructive module on smear-slide preparation, description, and interpretation of biogenic and related authigenic components in sediment; it complements our recently published Phase I of this project which concentrated on siliciclastic and volcaniclastic components (free interactive and printable editions can be downloaded from http://iodp.tamu.edu/publications/TN.html). Both modules are in the form of layered, interactive PDF files constructed with Adobe InDesign. Text includes: rationale for smear slide use in core description; techniques for creating smear slides; and description of and data collection for smear slides, including strategies for estimating percentages. The atlas of high-resolution images of mainly mud fractions from Ocean Drilling Program core samples includes multiple examples of smear slides of individual calcareous, siliceous, organic and phosphatic biogenic components, as well as mixtures of these components. Scaled plane-light and crossed-polar images are organized and grouped with thumbnail summaries and hyperlinked for flexible browsing. The searchable modules can be easily used by sedimentologists in the laboratory and the classroom.