New discoveries initiated by present ocean expedition into South China Seas

Oceanic research

Carol Forsloff---The International Ocean Discovery Program is planning another ocean expedition that was initiated on January 26 of this year and will be proceeding until March 30.  The goal of this ocean voyage on the South China sea is to explore various facets of these ocean areas to examine archaeological and paleontology issues.

What are these issues?  They include an evaluation of the implications for "Eastern Asian and Western Pacific tectonic and paleoenvironmental evolution," according to the announcements made by the ocean discovery programs.  Scientists will dig into sediments annd basalts and take samples to determinate cirtical information about the evolution of various stages of the basin.

What are the objectives of the voyage?   By learning about this area in terms of its ecological information, scientists add to the cadre of necessary research to assess both the past and the future when it comes to climate change, as Margaret Mead, the famous anthropologist, maintained was necessary to prepare for changes in the earth and its environment.  At the same time, the organization is attached to the interests of ocean drilling, establishing new areas to locate energy.

This news reminds us that it is the integration of the various sciences of the world that allow us to move forward as a people and to understand our earth, as people prepare to meet new conditions of our world.

Scientific objectives are to (1) establish the complex opening history of different subbasins and styles of oceanic crustal accretion of the SCS; (2) test various hypotheses of dynamic processes controlling transitions from a Mesozoic active continental margin to a Cenozoic passive one, and constrain whether the forces driving the opening of the SCS were far-field, near-field, or in-situ; (3) reveal the crustal nature and affinities of different subbasins, and understand oceanic crustal and deep mantle processes associated with tectonic extrusion, magmatism, and magnetization; (4) develop a complete 3D sedimentation and subsidence model and link it to regional climatic processes in response to various tectonic events; and (5) integrate these results to add to our general understanding of the geodynamic interplay of mantle and lithosphere processes that lead to the development of continental margins.