Global sediment thickness data set updated for the Australian-Antarctic Southern Ocean

• Published in: Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems
• Main Authors: Whittaker, J, Goncharov, A, Williams, SE, Muller, RD, Leitchenkov, G
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Amer Geophysical Union 2013
• Subjects: Earth Sciences; Geology; Structural geology and tectonics; Antarctic; Indian; Southeast Indian Ridge; Southern Ocean; Antarc*
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.1002/ggge.20181; http://ecite.utas.edu.au/88442

We present a new, 5 min sediment thickness grid for the Australian-Antarctic region (60E-155E,30S-70S). New seismic reflection and refraction data have been used to add detail to the conjugateAustralian and Antarctic margins and intervening ocean floor where regional sediment thickness patternswere poorly known previously. On the margins, sediment thickness estimates were computed fromvelocity-depth functions from sonobuoy/refraction velocity solutions ground-truthed against seismicreflection data. For the Southeast Indian Ridge abyssal plains, sediment thickness contours from Geliet al. (2007) were used. The new regional minimum sediment thickness grid was combined with theglobal National Geophysical Data Center (NGDC) sediment grid to create an updated global grid. Evenusing the minimum estimates, sediment accumulations on the extended Australian and Antarcticcontinental margins are 2 km thicker across large regions and up to 9 km thicker in the Ceduna Basincompared to the global NGDC compilation of sediment thickness data.