CTcore - Computertomographie-basierte quantitative Sedimentkernanalyse

• Applicants: Dr. Daniel Baum; Dr. Jürgen Titschack
• Subject Area: Palaeontology ; Geology
• Term: since 2021
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 490665120

Sedimentary deposits present an essential part of the rock cycle, cover the majority of the earth’s surface, provide important economic resources, and archive bio-/geological processes and environmental conditions during their formation. Mass wasting remobilises sedimentary deposits with often disastrous consequences. Therefore, analysing sedimentary deposits provides the basis for palaeoenvironmental, palaeoclimatic, and geohazard research and yields a baseline for understanding the earth system. Visual descriptions of sedimentary deposits present the first fundamental step in their analysis and form the backbone of any subsequent interpretation. To date, these descriptions are mostly qualitative and predominantly performed on 2-dimensional surfaces. CTcore aims to develop tools for computed tomography (CT)-based quantitative sediment core analyses to complement visual core descriptions for assessing the macrofossil assemblages, orientations and stacking patterns, bioturbation traces, and identifying and differentiating depositional surfaces and fault planes, including their spatial orientation. It will combine the expertise of geoscientists and computer scientists and will substantially benefit from the predecessor project CTcoral. Main objectives are the development of (i) an automated identification of sediment constituents, specifically macrofossils with a focus on cold-water corals, and the subsequent analyses of their spatial orientation and neighbourhood relationship (stacking pattern), (ii) an improved segmentation of bioturbation traces, and (iii) an automatic segmentation and analysis of depositional surfaces and fault planes. The development will rely on already available CT scans of sediment cores (in total >1100 m) retrieved from various depositional environments including cold-water coral mounds, mollusc-rich shelf deposits, mass-wasting deposits as well as polar shelf, slope and basin deposits. In summary, CTcore will provide geoscientists with a comprehensive and user-friendly processing toolbox to complement visual core descriptions with quantitative analyses of the most common sedimentary features thus improving sedimentological interpretations as well as their broader palaeoenvironmental, palaeoceanographic, and palaeoclimatic implications.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants