The Pilbara Drilling Project (PDP): A French-Australian Connection
Abstract
The Pilbara Drilling Project (PDP) is a French-Australian research project organized by Pascal Philippot and his colleagues at the Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris (IPGP) and the Université Paris-Sud and Martin Van Kranendonk and his associates from the Geological Survey of Western Australia (GSWA). The PDP has been carried out during August 2004 through funding from the IPGP and the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS). The objectives of the PDP are to investigate "fresh" Archaean rocks recovered from relatively shallow drilling performed below the water table in order to gain information on the Early Earth environments, with special emphasis on the chemistry and possibly temperature of the oceans and atmosphere, the nature and diversity of the biosphere and the dynamics of the mantle-crust-ocean-atmosphere system. Two cores of about 200 m each have been recovered in two different sites. The sedimentary and hydrothermal chert-barite horizon of the Dresser Formation (North Pole Dome; 3.49 Ga) and the shallow-marine or -lake carbonate sediments and tuffaceous material of the Tumbiana Formation (2.7 Ga).Special care has been taken on minimizing contamination by organic compounds during and after drilling and on core orientation.
- Publication:
-
AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2004
- Bibcode:
- 2004AGUFM.B32B..06P
- Keywords:
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- 8125 Evolution of the Earth;
- 8135 Hydrothermal systems (8424);
- 3600 MINERALOGY AND PETROLOGY (replaces;
- 0400 Biogeosciences;
- 1000 GEOCHEMISTRY (New field;
- replaces Rock Chemistry)