Call to Participate: Expedition 506S: SIGNALS: Stratigraphic InteGration of North Atlantic Legacy Sites
Call to Participate in IODP3 Expedition 506S: SIGNALS: Stratigraphic InteGration of North Atlantic Legacy Sites
IODP3 Expedition 506S is a SPARC (Scientific Projects using ocean drilling ARChives) expedition involving sampling and analysis of legacy IODP, ODP, and DSDP cores from the North Atlantic, and held in the Bremen Core Repository (BCR) in Bremen, Germany. We invite applications from scientists with interest and expertise relevant to the objectives of the expedition to apply for membership of the IODP3 Expedition Science Team. This call is open to applicants based in nations currently participating in IODP3 or in any nation currently or previously a member of a scientific ocean drilling programme.
The North Atlantic is one of the most climatically variable and sensitive regions in the oceans as it is prone to mode jumps in the Atlantic Meridional Ocean Circulation (AMOC). While many ODP/IODP expeditions have recovered continuous, high-resolution sediment sequences in the North Atlantic, a comprehensive integration of these legacy sites remains incomplete. These cores contain distinct signals of orbital- and suborbital-scale climate variability but many have not been fully exploited because they have not been properly correlated and integrated across the entire North Atlantic. The SIGNALS (Stratigraphic InteGration of North Atlantic Legacy Sites) expedition aims to synthesize and integrate these legacy records into a coherent, four dimensional stratigraphic framework to provide a regional reconstruction of past climate variability on millennial to orbital timescales since the late Miocene.
Stratigraphic correlation and chronology are at the heart of the SIGNALS project because it is a prerequisite for interpreting past climate history and identifying the forcings and dynamics of climate change. IODP3 Expedition 506S will synchronize records across multiple North Atlantic sites to answer key paleoclimate questions regarding orbital- and millennial-scale climate variability from the late Miocene to present. Climate variability will be placed in an orbitally-tuned chronologic framework with robust estimates of stratigraphic and temporal uncertainty. The unified framework will provide the basis for generation and synthesis of new and existing proxy data by members of the Expedition 506S Science Team. It will also permit refinement of the ages of isotopic, biostratigraphic and magnetostratigraphic chronologies across the North Atlantic. The geochonologic information will feed into broader initiatives such as Time Integrated Matrix for Earth Sciences (TIMES) (Westerhold et al., 2024).
A range of skills will be needed to conduct the core components of the expedition. The Science Team will include specialists spanning the full range of disciplines needed to correlate North Atlantic legacy sites across millennial and orbital timescales to create an integrated stratigraphic network. Each participant will be assigned to one or more working groups according to expertise and interests, ensuring that both millennial and orbital correlation objectives are addressed collaboratively and coherently. We particularly welcome early career scientists with a strong foundation and interest in signal analysis and correlation, statistics, data processing and analysis, and specialized machine-learning.
We invite applications by scientists with expertise in each of these fields, both for “Repository and Laboratory” and “Laboratory-only roles” and we also welcome applications from researchers proposing complementary research projects that go beyond the stated research objectives or wishing to apply additional or novel techniques not listed above.
For more information please read the full call in the PDF below. The Scientific Prospectus can also be found via the link below, and on the Expedition 506S Expedition Page
Applications must be submitted by 23:59 GMT on Wednesday 11 February 2026 using the IODP3 Gateway system. The Gateway can be accessed via Apply to Participate on the IODP3 webpage, and more information on the content required for applications to this call is also available in the IODP3 Guide for Applicants.
A webinar will be held on Thursday 18 December 2025 at 9am (GMT) to enable the community to find out more about Expedition 506S. You can register for the webinar here. A recording of this webinar will be posted online below soon after the webinar takes place.
Any questions about the application process please contact applications@iodp3.org
