EASTERN REGIONAL ROOTS, GLOBAL REACH: DEVELOPING GLOBAL SEA–LEVEL HISTORY AND A RECORD OF MAJOR EVENT BY DRILLING THE MID-ATLANTIC COASTAL PLAIN

Outcrops, discontinuously sampled wells, and well logs allowed pioneering studies of the Mid-Atlantic coastal plain, placing them into a lithostratigraphic framework by J. Owens and colleagues at the USG and a global biostratigraphic and preliminary sequence stratigraphic framework by R.K. Olsson of Rutgers. However, it was the continuous coring and logging of Upper Cretaceous to Holocene sequences that allowed unequivocal recognition of sequence boundaries, flooding surfaces, and systems tracts and dating to within ±0.5 Myr uncertainty. International Ocean Discovery Program drilling Legs 150X (1993-1994) and 174AX (1997-2014) in New Jersey and Delaware largely by the USGS Eastern Regional Mapping Team (G. Cobbs, G. Cobbs III, and D. Queen, head drillers) provided unparalleled cores and logs that led to: 1) development of a sequence stratigraphic framework for the last 110 Myr; 2) backstripped record, progressively accounting for the effects of compaction, loading, and thermal subsidence that provides an estimate of global mean sea level and non-thermal subsidence; 3) quantification of nonthermal subsidence attributable to changes in Mantle Dynamic Topography; 4) a record of the Cenomanian/Turonian Ocean Anoxic event in a shelf setting showing that it was unrelated to Myr-scale sea-level change; 5) a record of the Cretaceous/Paleogene mass extinction that unequivocally links impact and extinction; 6) a detailed record of the Campanian/Maastrichtian cooling and ice-volume events associated with the Deccan Trap degassing; and 7) an unrivaled cross shelf record of the Paleocene Eocene Thermal Maximum and Carbon Isotopic Excursion. The recent Medford Auger Project coreholes (J. Grey, head driller) have proven a boon not only in providing pristine sampling of the PETM, but also in the education of numerous undergraduate and graduate students and post-docs in the field and the lab. The stratigraphic and paleoceanographic communities should give thanks to the efforts of these USGS drillers and to the USGS for providing a valuable resource to the U.S. and global scientific communities.