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Project details
| Title: | National Facility External Users: B. Cohen (University of Queensland) |
| Id: | 2408 |
| Acronym: | National Facility user: Cohen B. |
| Investigator(s): | Benjamin Cohen
University of Queensland [details] |
| Description: | |
| Years: | 2012 |
List of surveys that this project was on.
Use [details] link to view survey details (map, reports, metadata etc) including links to download data.
| Survey | Investigator | Description |
|---|---|---|
| SS2012_V07 [details] |
B. Cohen (UQ) | Southern Surveyor SS2012_V07. Tasmantid Seamounts: volcanic, tectonic, and carbonate record. Scientific Objectives : The Tasmantid seamounts are a chain of underwater hotspot-derived intraplate volcanoes situated 150 to 600 km east of the Australian mainland (Figure 1). Because of the long record of hotspot-derived volcanic activity - spanning more than 2000 km and >40 million years - the seamounts provide an exceptional and largely untapped record of Australian plate velocity. Deciphering this record by obtaining volcanic samples suitable for high-resolution 40Ar/39Ar geochronology is a major objective of this expedition (Cohen, Vasconcelos, Knesel). Such volcanic samples will also record the chemical evolution of a long-lived mantle plume, and chemical analyses will reveal information on mantle reservoirs, melting, magma diversification, and the contrasting contamination effects of thinned continental lithosphere in the north versus oceanic lithosphere in the south (Knesel, Arculus). Geophysical data will also be collected over the seamounts and oceanic crust of the Tasman Sea to help study the tectonic history and lithospheric structure of the region. The larger seamounts are variably capped by fossil and modern coral reefs and/or other carbonate sediments (Webb). Although not targeted specifically, where carbonate materials are recovered with the volcanic rocks this material will provide a key biologic and climatic record of the seas east of Australia. Morphologic analysis of the seamounts will allow identification of volcanic and coral-growth geomorphology, as well as any mass wasting deposits (Cohen, Webb). |