From Australian Oceans Data Network
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Macquarie Island: A window into the oceanic crust and upper mantle

Created 23/06/2025

Updated 23/06/2025

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Because of the inaccessibility of the deep-ocean floor, our knowledge about the composition and structure of the oceanic crust is very limited. Macquarie Island is the only fragment of ocean crust exposed above sea-level in the world, providing a unique opportunity to study the ocean crust directly in unprecedented detail. From the abstract of the referenced paper: Macquarie Island preserves largely in-situ Miocene oceanic crust and mantle formed at a slow-spreading ridge. The crustal section on the island does not conform to a simple 'layer cake pseudo-stratigraphy', but is the result of multiple magmatic episodes. Macquarie Island crust did not grow by top-down cooling, but rather from the base up. Peridotites cooled first and formed the basement into which gabbro plutons were intruded. This was followed by cooling and deformation, and by intrusion of dykes that fed a sheeted dyke-basalt complex. Finally, lava filled grabens were formed. These relative age relations rule out simple co-genetic relations between rock units.

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Additional Info

Field Value
Title Macquarie Island: A window into the oceanic crust and upper mantle
Language eng
Licence Not Specified
Landing Page https://data.gov.au/data/dataset/55ce5f6a-839f-4a61-bf9d-5ef36f6d247d
Contact Point
Australian Ocean Data Network
metadata@aad.gov.au
Reference Period 21/10/2002 - 28/03/2003
Geospatial Coverage
Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors
{
  "coordinates": [
    158.0,
    -54.0
  ],
  "type": "Point"
}
Data Portal Australian Oceans Data Network

Data Source

This dataset was originally found on Australian Oceans Data Network "Macquarie Island: A window into the oceanic crust and upper mantle". Please visit the source to access the original metadata of the dataset:
https://catalogue.aodn.org.au/geonetwork/srv/eng/csw/dataset/macquarie-island-a-window-into-the-oceanic-crust-and-upper-mantle