Linda A. Hinnov
Professor of Geology
Department of Atmospheric, Oceanic and Earth Sciences
George Mason University

The Jurassic Mochras Project

Under the aegis of the International Continental Drilling Program (ICDP) a new borehole will be drilled to recover a complete Early Jurassic sedimentary record at the site of a previously (1967-1969) drilled core at Llanbedr (Mochras Farm), Cardigan Bay Basin, Wales. The new Mochras drillcore will recover a thick (1300 m), biostratigraphically complete succession of marine mudrocks to be developed for integrated astrochronology, chemostratigraphy, biostratigraphy, and magnetostratigraphy, to create an international standard for 25 million years of Earth history (174-201 Ma). See ICDP.

Funded by ICDP, with additional proposals submitted to NERC, Danish Council, US-NSF and EU.

Participants:

Stephen Hesselbo, Lead PI, University of Exeter, United Kingdom
Christian Bjerrum, Proponent, University of Copenhagen, Denmark
Linda Hinnov, Proponent, George Mason University, USA
Jim Riding, Proponent, British Geological Survey, UK
Bas van de Schootbrugge, Proponent, Utrecht University, Netherlands
Conall Mac Niocaill, Proponent, University of Oxford, UK
Ken Miller, Proponent, Rutgers University, USA
Thomas Wonik, Proponent, Leibnitz Institute, Germany

Project Objectives:

1. Drill and recover a thick (1300 m) succession of marine mudrock of Early Jurassic age from a site at Mochras Farm, Wales.
2. Log a full suite of downhole and pass-through geophysical measurements.
3. Generate continuous time series of physical and chemical attributes of the core sediments.
4. Construct an age model based on cyclostratigraphic analysis of these datasets for the Early Jurassic Period.
5. Document the pacing of palaeoenvironmental changes through the Early Jurassic, focusing on the Toarcian Oceanic Anoxic Event, and other lesser-known events such as the Sinemurian-Pliensbachian boundary.
6. Establish high-resolution datasets for regional and global correlation.
7. Develop isotopic, molecular, and elemental datasets of emerging paleoclimatic proxies to understand the full range of environmental changes that characterize the Early Jurassic interval and the processes that link them.