Scheduled Cruises in 2003

Summary of a scheduled cruise on margins research (UK.032)

Location :   Central Atlantic Ocean

Research ship and cruise identifier :   RRS Discovery

Sails :   November 2003  from: Recife, Brazil

Docks :   December 2003  in: Recife, Brazil

Principal Scientist/Investigator :   AB Watts

Laboratory :   Dept. of Earth Sciences, University of Oxford, UK

Other investigators :   C Peirce (Durham), J. Berrocal (Sao Paulo)

E-mail contact for further information :   tony@earth.ox.ac.uk

Scientific objectives :   The Amazon Cone is a deep-sea fan system that developed on the northeast Brazil rifted passive continental margin during the Late Miocene. The aim of this experiment to use seismic refraction techniques to determine the deep structure of the crust and upper mantle beneath the Cone, where gravity modeling suggest the lithosphere has been loaded almost to the limits of its strength. The experiment, which has been funded by the NERC/LINK Ocean margins programme, is a collaborative effort between the Universities of Oxford and Durham (UK) and Sao Paulo (Brazil), and an industrial consortium.