Seismic pre-site survey for an IODP site on the Cape Verde Plateau

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Sebastian Krastel
• Subject Area: Palaeontology ; Geophysics
• Term: from 2019 to 2021
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 428433623

The IODP proposal ‘Cenozoic climate, productivity, and sediment transport at the NW African continental margin’ suggests investigating: i) NW African climate in a warmer world, and ii) High productivity ecosystem response to climates different from today. Sediment cores should be retrieved in six areas off NW-Africa. A central site is proposed on the Cape Verde Plateau close to ODP Site 659 but no modern high-resolution seismic data are available for this area. Such data will be collected during RV Meteor-Cruise M155 in the period May 26 to June 30, 2019. The main goal of this DFG proposal is the processing and interpretation of the new seismic data in order to develop a seismic stratigraphic framework for the Cape Verde Plateau. The work aims in identifying a site where the Plio-Pleistocene is thinner and the Miocene is thicker than at Site 659. This would allow to APC-XCB deeper into the Miocene, which is crucial for retrieving high-quality cores for paleoclimate investigations.

• DFG Programme: Infrastructure Priority Programmes
• Subproject of: SPP 527: Bereich Infrastruktur - "International Ocean Discovery Program" (IODP)