A new research project was started by Patricia M. Gregg, who is finishing up her first year at MIT in the MIT/Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) Joint Program in Marine Geology and Geophysics. Trish's primary research interests lie in crust/mantle interactions and geodynamics at transform faults and fracture zones.

Trish is also working on a project that she and John Grotzinger developed while conducting class-related field work in the Three Creeks area of Andros Island. We were able to visit Joulters Cay and sample the famous ooid shoals, while formulating questions about their formation and the time scale of the deposits. There has been a fair amount of research performed on ooids and their depositional environments. However, very little is known in regards to how they form. Some questions we are looking at include: given a population of ooids, when were they formed, all at once or over a long period of time? Is there a relation between ooid size and age? Are ooids measurably older at their cores in contrast to their margins? Do ooids have distinct source regions (marked by differing age), or do they all form simultaneously over the entire shoal?

To answer these and many other questions, Trish has started to prepare ooid samples to be analyzed using the Accelerator Mass Spectrometer at  WHOI. We will be micro-sampling the ooids using a technique developed by Chris Weidman. This technique should allow us to date the rings on an ooid and gain insight into the formation of an ooid over time.