Using new tools to explore undiscovered country: Understanding the stratigraphic and tectonic history of greenhouse to icehouse worlds of offshore New Harbor, Ross Sea, Antarctica

Authors

Stephan Pekar, Queens CollegeFollow
M. A. Speece, Montana Tech
D. M. Harwood, University of Nebraska at LincolnFollow
F. Florindo, Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e VulcanologiaFollow
G. S. Wilson, University of OtagoFollow

Date of this Version

2007

Comments

Citiation: Pekar, S.F., M.A. Speece, D.M. Harwood, F. Florindo, and G. Wilson (2007), Using New Tools to Explore Undiscovered Country: Understanding the Stratigraphic and Tectonic History of Greenhouse to Icehouse Worlds of Offshore New Harbor, Ross Sea, Antarctica: in Antarctica: A Keystone in a Changing World – Online Proceedings of the 10th ISAES, edited by A.K. Cooper and C.R. Raymond et al., USGS Open- File Report 2007-1047, Extended Abstract 169, 4 p.

Abstract

The Offshore New Harbor Project will investigate the stratigraphic and tectonic history of westernmost Southern McMurdo Sound. This will be used to address two widely recognized but unresolved issues regarding Antarctica’s history: 1) the mid-Paleogene cryospheric development on Antarctica; and 2) the abrupt climate shift across the Eocene/Oligocene transition. The first step for this project is to collect the requisite seismic and gravity data for identifying future drilling targets for the ANDRILL Program. ANDRILL is a multinational program, with the aim to recover stratigraphic intervals for interpreting Antarctica’s climate and glacial history over the past 50 million years. Offshore New Harbor is an ideal locale to tackle these questions because existing data suggest substantial strata deposited during Eocene time, across the Eocene/Oligocene boundary, and into the “mid” Oligocene are preserved updip of current seismic profiles and borehole locations.