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doi:10.2204/iodp.proc.310.202.2009

Introduction

The island of Tahiti, at 17°50′S and 149°20′W, is a volcanic island belonging to a group of Neogene–Quaternary linear volcanic chains in French Polynesia, south-central Pacific. The drowned Pleistocene to Holocene reef terraces seaward of the modern fringing reefs in Tahiti were drilled during Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP) Expedition 310 in order to study environmental change, including sea level rise following the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) (Camoin et al., 2007; see the “Expedition 310 summary” chapter). A total of 632 m of mostly carbonate rocks were cored from several holes in the Tiarei (northern), Maraa (southern), and Faaa (western) drilling areas off the island during Expedition 310. Uncemented to poorly consolidated volcaniclastic sediments were also recovered in all drilling areas, albeit these mainly occur as fine-grained impurities in many of the carbonate rock units and as relatively thin units interbedded with the carbonate rocks. However, a ~36 m thick sequence of alternating sand, silt, clay, and pebbly/​cobbly materials was drilled in the Hole M0008A reference site in the Tiarei area near the mouth of the Papenoo River, the largest drainage system in Tahiti (see the “Tiarei marginal sites: Sites M0008, M0010–M0014, and M0022” chapter). This report presents geochemical and age data for the volcaniclastic sediments recovered during Expedition 310 in order to provide background information for future detailed geochemical work on these materials.