India - National IMAGES report for 2002

IMAGES - India Report of activities during 2001-2002 Indian IMAGES program is operated by the National Institute of Oceanography Goa through the BENFAN project (Paleoceanographic studies in the Bay of Bengal). This year we received funds from the Department of Ocean Development, New Delhi for carrying out paleoclimate studies and for chartering/hiring a vessel for collecting long cores in the Bay of Bengal. We are looking for partners in this venture.

The partners in the BENFAN programme are drawn from the National Institute of Oceanography Goa (NIO), Goa; Physical Research Laboratory (PRL), Ahmedabad; Madras University (MU), Chennai and Andhra University (AU), Vishakapatnam .

Principal investigators are

During the last three years the BENFAN group has been actively building up the required facilities for paleoclimatic studies. We have procured and set up the following facilities

1. Piston corer (24 m), square gravity corer (25 x 25 cm x 12 m), Multicorer and all conventional geological sampling equipment.
2. A core repository (2°C) can accommodate a total core length of about 3000m.
3. A mass spectrometer with a carbonate line for 18O and 13 C studies
4. A GEOTEK Multi Sensor Core Logger with all sensors
5. A spacious laboratory exclusively for processing piston core samples
6. Specialized laboratories having Malvern Laser particle size analyzer, Carlo Erba elemental analyzer, coulometer, ICP -AES etc.

In October 2000 a 30 day cruise of the research vessel ORV Sagar Kanya was undertaken in the Bay of Bengal for to identify suitable locations for collection of long cores. Analysis of the cores is in progress.