Quaternary Sediment Cores from the Southern Fairway Basin (Tasman Sea)

Southern Fairway Basin in the Tasman Sea contains 13 piston cores of nannofossil ooze, collected in 1999 by the RV L'Atalante. The cores, ranging from 405 to 758 cm long and recovered from depths of 1250 to 2753 meters, document sediment, pore water, and gas composition. Analysis suggests sediment color, magnetic susceptibility, and sulfate variations are linked to iron remobilization driven by underlying methane.

Use Cases

• Modeling anaerobic methane oxidation and redox front formation based on pore water sulfate and methane profiles.
• Correlating sediment color changes with geochemical indicators like magnetic susceptibility and iron phases.
• Assessing thermogenic hydrocarbon potential based on the presence of ethane, propane, and higher gases.
• Estimating regional sedimentation rates and Quaternary age-depth relationships based on core length and described rates.

Strengths

• Contains 13 physical sediment cores with documented length (405-758 cm) and recovery depth (1250-2753 mbsl).
• Includes multi-parameter analysis: sediment color, magnetic susceptibility, pore water sulfate, and hydrocarbon gases.
• Provides a coherent geochemical hypothesis linking observed profiles to methane-driven diagenetic processes.

Limitations

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

Provenance

Source

Australian Ocean Data Network

Collection Method

13 piston cores collected by RV L'Atalante during the ZoNiCo 5 survey in 1999.

Time Range

Cores likely represent sediment deposited over the last approximately 800,000 years (Quaternary).

Freshness

Last updated 2026-06-27 19:17:26.182697; freshness should be verified

Geography

Southern Fairway Basin on the Lord Howe Rise, Tasman Sea.