AGSO Cruise 186: Antarctic Marine Geoscience Survey of Vincennes and Prydz Bays, 1996/97

Eight sediment cores and about 200 km of seismic data were collected in Vincennes Bay, along with 19 gravity cores and about 900 km of seismic and sidescan sonar data from Prydz Bay. This dataset summarizes preliminary results from the 1996/97 AGSO/ANARE marine geoscience voyage to the Australian Antarctic Territory. The program aimed to collect geophysical and sediment data to study ice sheet retreat timing and Holocene paleoenvironmental records.

Use Cases

• Modeling post-Last Glacial Maximum ice sheet retreat based on core and seismic data from shelf basins.
• Correlating Holocene paleoenvironmental records with ice core data using diatom and organic carbon data from sediment cores.
• Analyzing glacial marine depositional processes based on core interpretations of ice-rafted sedimentation and sediment gravity flows.
• Planning future ocean drilling projects using seismic data collected from the Prydz trough mouth fan.

Strengths

• Includes about 200 km of seismic data from Vincennes Bay and about 900 km from Prydz Bay.
• Contains 19 gravity cores from Prydz Bay, with a key diatom bed traceable across more than 15,000 km².
• Cores from inner shelf glacial troughs reach water depths of up to 1,850 meters.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Data may reflect geographic bias inherent to the specific Antarctic survey areas.

Provenance

Source

Australian Ocean Data Network

Collection Method

Marine geophysical survey and sediment sampling program conducted during AGSO Cruise 186 / ANARE Voyage 5.

Time Range

1996-1997 season

Freshness

Last updated 2026-04-16 09:13:38.678642; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Vincennes Bay, Prydz Bay, Mac.Robertson Shelf, and Heard Island in the Australian Antarctic Territory and Kerguelen Plateau.