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

East Antarctic marine geoscience data collected during the 1996/97 season by the Australian Geological Survey Organisation and the Antarctic Co-operative Research Centre. The voyage targeted Vincennes Bay, Prydz Bay, and the Mac.Robertson Shelf, collecting sediment cores and geophysical data. Objectives included investigating 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 analysis from sediment cores.
• Analyzing glacial marine depositional processes (ice-rafted vs. gravity flows) from core lithology and sidescan sonar records.
• Investigating the extent and internal structure of grounding line moraines using collected seismic profiles.

Strengths

• Includes about 200 km of seismic data from Vincennes Bay and about 900 km from Prydz Bay.
• Contains 8 sediment cores from Vincennes Bay and 19 gravity cores from Prydz Bay.
• A key sedimentary unit ('interstadial' diatom ooze) is traceable across more than 15,000 km² of the Prydz Channel.

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 and temporal bias inherent to the specific 1996/97 research cruise.

Provenance

Source

Australian Ocean Data Network, originating from AGSO/ANARE research cruise.

Collection Method

Marine geophysical survey and sediment coring/sampling program.

Time Range

1996-1997 season.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-06-05 06:38:52.746217; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Vincennes Bay, Prydz Bay, Mac.Robertson Shelf, and Heard Island in East Antarctica.