Julie was recently selected by Ocean Leadership to participate in an oceanographic research cruise. The cruise is part of the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP) and will sail November 4, 2009-January 4, 2010, on Expedition #317 to study the Canterbury Basin, Eastern South Island, New Zealand. The operations plan assumes a start in Papeete, Tahiti and an end in Wellington, New Zealand.

This research cruise focuses on understanding the relative importance of global sea level (eustacy) versus local tectonic and sedimentary processes in controlling continental-margin depositional cyclicity. The emphasis is on Oligocene to Recent period when global sea-level change was dominated by glacioueustasy. Drilling the Canterbury Basin, on the eastern margin of the South Island of New Zealand takes advantage of high rates of Neogene sediment supply, which preserved a high-frequency (0.5-1 m.y periods) record of depositional cyclicity. The Canterbury Basin offers the opportunity for expanded study of the complete interactions between processes responsible for the preserved stratigraphic record of sequences, as well as providing information on the early history of the Alpine Fault plate boundary. In particular, currents have strongly influenced deposition in parts of the basin, locally building large sediment drifts, which aggraded to shelf depths within the prograding Neogene section. Understanding the depositional history, paleoceanographic record and sequence stratigraphic significance of these drifts are objectives of the proposed drilling. The sequences to be drilled are correlative with those drilled on the New Jersey margin (Legs 150, 150X, 174A, and 174AX), Bahamas (Leg 166) and Marion Plateau (Leg 194) by ODP. Completion of at least one transect across a far-field siliciclastic margin, which has been subject to entirely different local forcing, is a necessary next step in deciphering continental margin stratigraphy. The Canterbury Basin, where both sequence stratigraphic geometries and seismic data base are of qualities comparable to those of New Jersey, is an ideal setting for such a drilling program.

Find out more about this research project and Julie's exciting research opportunity at the IODP website. Congratulations, Julie!