Mochras borehole revisited: a new global standard

HESSELBO, S.P., BJERRUM, C.J., HINNOV, L.A., MACNIOCAILL, C., MILLER, K.G., RIDING, J.B., VAN DE SCHOOTBRUGGE, B., ABELS, H., BELCHER, C., BLAU, J., BROWNING, J., CARTWRIGHT, J., CONDON, D., DAINES, S., DAMBORENEA, S., RICCARDI, A. ET AL.

Scientific Drilling

Copernicus Publications

Lugar: Sapporo; Año: 2013 vol. 16 p. 81 - 91

1816-8957

Recognizing the potential for realizing a transformative understanding of climate changes between extremes, a workshop to plan future drilling at Mochras was held. The workshop participants comprised thirty-two researchers from China, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, the Netherlands, Poland, Switzerland, the UK and the USA. These participants also represented the wider interests of another ten scientists who have expressed an interest in the project but were unable to attend the meeting, including colleagues from Argentina. The workshop was held from 16 to 23 March and comprised a field excursion to the Cleveland Basin, core viewing at the British Geological Survey core store at Keyworth, Nottingham, two days of discussion in Oxford, and a supplementary field excursion to the Bristol Channel basin. The workshop highlighted the following unique potential for the Mochras project: First biostratigraphically calibrated magnetostratigraphyfor the entire 25 Myr-long Early Jurassic based on a single section; High-resolution continuous cyclostratigraphy for the Early Jurassic; Astronomical Time Scale (ATS); Solar System resonance; length-of-day and tidal dissipation; Multi-proxy chemostratigraphy to track supercontinent breakup influence on the global earth system: Record of the Triassic/Jurassic mass extinction and subsequent recovery of the carbon cycle, biosphere and ocean, and effects from CO2 and other volatile releases from the CAMP; Early Jurassic sea level change and the icehouse?greenhouse transition across the Pliensbachian?Toarcian boundary; Interdependencies among primary productivity, microbial metabolisms, nutrient fluxes and ocean redox state; Integrated record of changes in atmospheric and marine composition understood in the context of quantitative whole earth system models; Order of magnitude improvement in knowledge of Early Jurassic geological timescale through full synthesis of radioisotopic and chonostratigraphic scales.