Biostratigraphy of Seismic Samples from Vening Meinesz Seamounts, Indian Ocean

Samples from eight dredge hauls collected during BMR cruise 107 from several seamounts in the Vening Meinesz chain, south of Christmas Island, yielded calcareous nannofossils, foraminiferids, and fragmentary macrofossils with ages ranging from Late Cretaceous to Holocene. The data, published by Geoscience Australia, provides insights into the geological history, volcanic activity, and paleoenvironmental changes of the northeastern Indian Ocean seamounts.

Use Cases

• Reconstructing paleoenvironmental conditions based on described Late Cretaceous shallow-water to upper bathyal assemblages.
• Analyzing seamount volcanic history and subsidence patterns based on age ranges and lithology mixtures suggestive of debris flows.
• Studying paleoclimate and latitudinal shifts based on evidence of warm seas and subtropical/tropical water temperatures in the Eocene.
• Modeling sediment transport processes from described debris flows that continued to transport shallow-water sediments downslope.

Strengths

• Covers a wide temporal range from the Late Cretaceous to the Holocene.
• Includes multiple fossil groups: calcareous nannofossils, foraminiferids, and fragmentary macrofossils.
• Samples are from eight distinct dredge hauls across several seamounts, providing spatial variety.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Data is provided in PDF/HTML formats, which may require extraction for computational analysis.

Provenance

Source

Geoscience Australia Data

Collection Method

Samples collected from eight dredge hauls during BMR cruise 107.

Time Range

Late Cretaceous to Holocene

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-25 18:12:03.439636; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Vening Meinesz seamounts chain, south of Christmas Island, northeastern Indian Ocean