ODP Leg 189: Cretaceous-Holocene Sediment Cores from the Tasmanian Gateway

Upper Maastrichtian to Holocene marine sediment cores, totaling 4539 meters, recovered from five sites in the Tasmanian Gateway by the Ocean Drilling Program. The dataset, provided by Geoscience Australia, documents the region's geological history from the Late Cretaceous to the present. It was last updated in April 2026.

Use Cases

• Reconstructing past ocean circulation patterns based on sediment composition and microfossil evidence.
• Modeling the climatic effects of gateway opening and Antarctic thermal isolation described in the synthesis.
• Analyzing the transition from siliciclastic to carbonate sedimentation linked to oceanic changes.
• Studying microfossil assemblages (palynomorphs, diatoms, nannofossils, foraminifers) for paleoenvironmental proxies.

Strengths

• 4539 meters of largely continuous core recovered with an 89% recovery rate.
• Covers a long temporal range from the Late Cretaceous (Maastrichtian) to the Holocene.
• Spatial coverage includes five distinct bathyal drilling sites in the Tasmanian Gateway.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Data freshness should be verified as the last update timestamp is in the future (2026-04-30).

Provenance

Source

Ocean Drilling Program (ODP) Leg 189, via Geoscience Australia Data.

Collection Method

Scientific ocean drilling and core recovery from five sites.

Time Range

Upper Maastrichtian to Holocene (approx. 72 million years ago to present).

Freshness

Last updated 2026-04-30 13:44:25.113285

Geography

Tasmanian Gateway, submerged continental blocks at bathyal depths.