IODP Lord Howe Rise Drilling Proposal: Tectonics and Climate in the Southwest Pacific

The Lord Howe Rise, a submerged continental ribbon in the southwest Pacific's Tasman Sea, is the focus of a proposed deep stratigraphic drilling project. Geoscience Australia and JAMSTEC submitted a proposal to the International Ocean Discovery Program in 2015 to drill up to 2500 meters below the seafloor. The objectives are to study tectonic cycles, recover Cretaceous paleoclimate data, and investigate sub-seafloor microbial life over a 100-million-year timeframe.

Use Cases

• Modeling plate tectonic cycles and continental evolution based on the Lord Howe Rise's crustal structure.
• Reconstructing Cretaceous paleoclimate based on biomarker and micropaleontology data from recovered sediments.
• Investigating the evolution of sub-seafloor microbial life over a 100-million-year timeframe.
• Mapping sedimentary basin architecture and resource potential on a submerged continental ribbon.

Strengths

• Proposal rated 'excellent' by the IODP Science Evaluation Panel in January 2017.
• Preparatory seismic survey in 2016 acquired 2D reflection and refraction data to map crustal structure.
• Planned drilling depth of up to 2500 meters below the seafloor to access Cretaceous and older sediments.

Limitations

• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Data may reflect geographic/temporal bias inherent to data_gov_au.

Provenance

Source

Geoscience Australia Data

Collection Method

Proposal and planning data for an International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP) deep riser drilling project.

Time Range

Proposal submitted October 2015; drilling planned for 2019 or 2020.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-25 18:05:14.587148; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Lord Howe Rise, Tasman Sea, southwest Pacific.