IODP Lord Howe Rise Drilling Proposal: Tectonics, Climate and Ancient Life

A 2015-2017 proposal for deep stratigraphic drilling on the Lord Howe Rise, a submerged continental ribbon in the southwest Pacific. The dataset, from Geoscience Australia and JAMSTEC, outlines plans to core Cretaceous and older sediments up to 2500 meters below the seafloor to study tectonic evolution, Cretaceous paleoclimate, and sub-seafloor microbial life. Preparatory seismic surveys in 2016 and 2017 were conducted to map crustal structure and characterize prospective drill sites.

Use Cases

• Modeling tectonic evolution of continental ribbons based on proposed deep coring of rift basin sediments.
• Reconstructing Cretaceous paleoclimate using biomarker and micropaleontology data mentioned as a primary objective.
• Studying the evolution of sub-seafloor microbial life over a 100-million-year timeframe as outlined in the proposal.
• Analyzing crustal structure and basin architecture using preparatory 2D seismic reflection and refraction data.

Strengths

• Proposal was rated 'excellent' by the IODP Science Evaluation Panel in January 2017.
• Preparatory seismic survey in 2016 acquired data along an east-west transect and at prospective drill sites.
• Proposed drilling aims to recover a geological record spanning over 100 million years.

Limitations

• Description metadata is limited; actual data quality requires manual inspection after download.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.

Provenance

Source

Geoscience Australia Data

Collection Method

Proposed international ocean drilling program led by Geoscience Australia and JAMSTEC, involving seismic surveys.

Time Range

Proposal submitted 2015, planned drilling for 2019 or 2020. Data includes results from 2016 seismic survey.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-04-20 03:23:42.365375; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Lord Howe Rise, a submerged continental ribbon in the Tasman Sea, southwest Pacific.