Geological Studies in the Eastern Indian Ocean: Cruise SO258/1 of the R/V Sonne (Germany) with the Participation of Russian Researchers

• Published in: Oceanology
• Main Authors: Levchenko, O. V., Marinova, Yu. G., Werner, Reinhard, Portnyagin, Maxim V.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Pleiades Publishing, Springer 2019
• Subjects: Antarctic; Canada; Colombo; Indian; Marinova; Norway; Alfred Wegener Institute; Antarc*; Antarctica
• Online Access: https://oceanrep.geomar.de/id/eprint/46887/; https://oceanrep.geomar.de/id/eprint/46887/1/Levchenko.pdf; https://doi.org/10.1134/S0001437019020127

Cruise SO258/1 of the R/V Sonne (Germany) along a route from Fremantle, Australia, to Colombo, Sri Lanka, was carried out between June 7 and July 9, 2017 for geological and biological research in the Eastern Indian Ocean. The scientific staff included 33 researchers from ten countries (Germany, Australia, USA, UK, Switzerland, France, Taiwan, Canada, Russia, Norway). Two Russian scientists participated on this cruise: O. V. Levchenko and Y. G. Marinova from the Shirshov Institute of Oceanology, Russian Academy of Sciences (IORAS), studying the problems of regional geology. This brief article provides information on geological research, which was led by the chief scientist of the cruise R. Werner, senior researcher from GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research (Kiel, Germany). The complete report on the expedition is available on the GEOMAR website [4]. Cruise SO258/1 was part of the research project INGON (INDIAN–ANTARCTIC BREAK-UP ENGIMA). The main objective of the INGON project was to study the magmatic and tectonic processes that cause and accompany the breakup of continents and the formation of oceanic basins on the example of the India–Antarctica breakup about 150 Ma ago. The project is executed by the GEOMAR and the Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI) Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (Bremerhaven). GEOMAR performed bathymetric survey and sampling of submarine rises and seamounts in the Eastern the Indian Ocean in the first “geological” leg (cruise SO258/1). AWI performed geophysical survey (magnetometry, gravimetry, multichannel seismic profiling, deep seismic sounding) in the Central Indian Basin in the second “geophysical” leg (cruise SO258/2).