Hot off the press! Unravelling carbonate platform evolution on the Queensland Plateau over the past 20 million years.

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Seismic line P02 crossing the margin of the drowned bank north of line P05. Blue line:
Platform Top horizon; red line: Mound Top horizon; Cyan line: Intra Platform horizon (Betzler et al., 2024 – Marine Geology).

Please join me in congratulating of GRG collaborator Professor Christian Betzler on the publication of his interesting new paper in the journal Marine Geology.

Betzler, C., Hübscher, C., Lindhorst, S., Lüdmann, T., Hincke, C., Beaman, R. J., and Webster, J. M., 2024, Seismic stratigraphic and sedimentary record of a partial carbonate platform drowning, Queensland Plateau, north-east Australia: Marine Geology 470. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.margeo.2024.107255. This paper is Open Access so feel free to download it directly here.

Map of the field area west of Tregrosse Bank (Betzler et al., 2024 – Marine Geology).

The paper presents a comprehensive analysis of newly collected high-resolution marine geophysical data (multbeam bathymetry, multichannel seismics and sub-bottom profiles) collected during the RV Sonne Cruise (SO292) within the context of previous Ocean Drilling Program (ODP) sediment cores, to investigate the evolution and partial drowning of the Queensland Plateau, off the north eastern Australian margin. The study is also novel as it presents the first new high-resolution multichannel seismic data collected along the north-east Australian margin in several decades, revealing the seismic stratigraphic architecture of the platform system in spectacular detail.

Paper Highlights

• Seismic reflection and multibeam data collected with RV Sonne in 2022 on the Queensland Plateau

• The carbonate platforms of the Queensland Plateau underwent a partial drowning between 13.6 and 12.7 Ma.

• The Queensland Plateau represents another example of a carbonate platform controlled by ocean currents during its evolution.

A: Queensland Plateau with isolated active carbonate banks and ODP sites (Betzler et al., 2024 – Marine Geology).

The study is part of a wonderful, ongoing collaboration between the GRG and Professor Christian Betzler’s marine geology & geophysics group at the University of Hamburg, Germany focused on carbonate platform evolution in Coral Sea.

This study also represents another step in an exciting program of collaboration between the University of Sydney and numerous national and international partners working together on a wealth of new data collected on recent research cruises on the RV Sonne (German DFG) and RV Falkor (Schmidt Ocean Institute) to investigate long term carbonate platform evolution, submarine landslides, and modern mesophotic reefs and the deeper water, unexplored seascapes of the Coral Sea.  

Bravo Christian and the team!

Cheers

Jody

#MarineScienceSydneyUni

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