Great Australian Bight seafloor to be examined for new species and oil bearing rocks in a study funded by Chevron

The unexplored sea floor of the great Australian Bight will be examined under a new project, conducted collaboratively by the CSIRO and oil giant Chevron. The research project is scheduled to be started in October and will explore the marine life up to the depth of 4,500m, in addition to the geology of the sea floor.

The multi-dollar research project is being funded completely by Chevron. The oil giant plans to initiate the deepwater oil and gas drilling in Bight in the later half of 2017 and the research project is expected to complete around the same time.

“We’ll be collecting samples from volcanic seamounts, sedimentary rock outcrops and hydrocarbon seeps to determine the timing, chemistry and mechanisms that led to their formation,” said Dr Andrew Ross, the chief scientist of the program, in an interview with the Herald Sun.

“We are expecting to collect up to several thousand geological and biological samples and may even discover new organisms which have never been seen before.”

Ross further said that the research team has been unsuccessful in deploying similar skill set and equipment for this type of research earlier because they “didn’t have access to the kind of capability that is found on board the Marine National Facility research vessel, Investigator.”

The program will make use of an autonomous vehicle to conduct a deepwater marine survey. The canyon walls and slopes will be evaluated for the potential petroleum source. In addition, distribution of volcanic structures is also planned to take place.

The CSIRO says that the project is an initiative toward understanding the environmental and biological data obtained through the marine sampling surveys. Even though the shallow systems within Bight are known to possess a huge biodiversity, not much information has been gained about the deep benthic ecosystems, where canyons and seamounts are known to habituate.

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