Geochemistry of ODP Leg 117 sites

On ODP Leg 117, geochemical logs were obtained at Sites 723, 728, and 731. We report here an evaluation of ODP geochemical log quality based on high-resolution sampling and X-ray fluorescence measurement of 398 core samples from the three sites.

At these sites we lacked the complete suite of high-quality logs needed for accurate log-based estimation of elemental percentages; only calcium and silicon logs had magnitudes similar to those from XRF. However, relative variations of log-based elemental abundances could be determined. Our comparisons of the XRF analyses with the character of variations in geochemical logs indicates that the reliability of ODP geochemical logs varies substantially, within short intervals and particularly between sites.