[M-IS18] Drilling Earth Science

[MIS18-16] Introduction to ‘New Caledonia Ophiolite Land-to-Sea Drilling Project’

Marguerite Godard¹, Julien Collot², Juerg Matter³, Rupert Sutherland⁴, Christian Betzler⁵, Vasileios Chatzaras⁶, Gaël Erauso⁷, François Fournier⁷, Frieder Klein⁸, Othmar Müntener⁹, Martin Patriat¹⁰, Roy Price¹¹, Shino Suzuki¹², *Yasuhiro Yamada¹³ (1.Université de Montpellier, CNRS, France, 2.Geological Survey of New Caledonia, France, 3.University of Southampton, UK, 4.Victoria University of Wellington, NZ, 5.University Hamburg, Germany, 6.The University of Sydney, Australia, 7.Aix-Marseille Université, France, 8.Woods Hole Oceanographic Insitution, USA, 9.University of Lausanne, Switzerland, 10.Ifremer, France, 11.Stony Brook University, USA, 12.Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, Japan, 13.Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology)

The New Caledonia Ophiolite and its offshore extension to the south (ca. 900km) is one of the world’s largest peridotite massifs, which formed during Eocene subduction initiation. It is an ideal place to study heat and mass exchanges between the solid Earth and its external envelopes, the formation mechanisms of metal and energy resources, the deep biosphere of ultramafic rocks, and impacts on the biological and climate system of both subduction initiation and resultant geochemical fluxes with ultramafic rocks.

We have submitted a preproposal of the New Caledonia Ophiolite Land-to-Sea Drilling Project (NCDP), with proposed drill sites on-land (9 ICDP sites) and off-shore (7 IODP sites). This presentation outlines the proposed scientific objectives and drilling strategy.