Geoscience Australia and JAMSTEC lead an international proposal for deep stratigraphic drilling on the Lord Howe Rise continental ribbon. The planned drilling aims to core Cretaceous and older sediments up to 2500 meters below the seafloor to study tectonic cycles, Cretaceous paleoclimate, and sub-seafloor microbial life. Preparatory work included a 2016 seismic survey mapping crustal structure and a planned 2017 site survey for geotechnical data.
Use Cases
- Modeling continental ribbon evolution based on proposed deep drilling into rift basin stratigraphy.
- Reconstructing Cretaceous high-latitude paleoclimate based on biomarker and micropaleontology data recovery objectives.
- Studying the evolution of sub-seafloor microbial life over a 100-million-year timeframe as outlined in the proposal objectives.
Strengths
- Proposal rated 'excellent' by the IODP Science Evaluation Panel in January 2017.
- Preparatory seismic survey acquired 2D reflection and refraction data along an east-west transect.
- Initial velocity models provide evidence of crustal segmentation linked to Tasman Sea fracture zones.
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 and JAMSTEC
- Collection Method
- Proposed deep riser stratigraphic drilling and preparatory seismic surveys.
- Time Range
- Proposal submitted October 2015; drilling planned for 2019 or 2020.
- Freshness
- Last updated 2026-06-16 17:25:18.903802; freshness should be verified.
- Geography
- Lord Howe Rise in the southwest Pacific Tasman Sea.