This award represents participation of the United States Antarctic Program (USAP) in the Cape Roberts Project (CRP), a multi-national program of scientific drilling in the southwestern Ross Sea region of Antarctica. The USAP will join the national Antarctic research programs of New Zealand, Italy, Germany, and the United Kingdom in sponsoring this project. The New Zealand Antarctic Program (NZAP) is the lead organization and is joined by the Italian and US Antarctic Programs as major equal partners. Germany and the United Kingdom are minor sponsors of the CRP. This award supports the scientific management activities associated with participation of US investigators in the CRP and along with this award is a commitment for logistical resources from the USAP in support of the project. The CRP was conceived to address several diverse issues in geosciences related to the Cretaceous to Paleogene (100-36 million years ago) history of the Ross Sea sector of Antarctica as well as early development of the southern ocean. Four holes are planned to investigate a 1500 meter sequence of the western Victoria Basin. Drilling is expected to be accomplished over two years. It would be done from land-fast sea ice early in the Austral summer and the drill system is expected to produce about 95% core recovery. The scientific objectives of the project include: 1) establishing the history of the extensional plate fragmentation of the western Ross Sea part of the West Antarctic Rift System; 2) determining the subsidence and emergence histories of the Victoria Land Basin and the Transantarctic Mountains; 3) determining the erosional and depositional budgets associated with rift margin uplift and basin development; 4) recovering the first late Cretaceous to Paleogene succession from the southwest Pacific close to Antarctica and attempting to recover paleoclimatic and paleoceanographic records for the region; 5) investigating relationships between uplift of the Transantarctic M ountains and climatic changes in the region; 6) determining the presence or absence of terrestrial or marine glaciation in the succession; and 7) documenting the impact of tectonic, sedimentologic, paleoclimatic, and eustatic oscillations on biotic evolution, biogeography, and marine circulation between 100 and 36 million years ago. This interdisciplinary research plan will provide valuable new data for Earth systems modeling, and it will reinforce global science agendas of projects such as the Ocean Drilling Program and the International Geosphere-Biosphere Program.
