Successful termination of scientific drilling in South Africa

In a joint research effort between the research groups of Prof. Urs Schaltegger (Earth Sciences of University of Geneva) and Dr. Frits Hilgen (Earth Sciences of University of Utrecht), a scientific drilling project has been carried out in South Africa. The 325 meter-long drill core through the ca. 2.45 billion year old anoxic deep sea sediments of the Kuruman Banded Iron Formation (Northern Cape) has now been completed and the core is awaiting cutting at University of Johannesburg before one half being shipped to Utrecht where it will undergo state of the art chemical analysis.  The core will allow new insights into Earth’s evolution from climatic variations to seawater chemistry during a poorly understood period of our planets history when the atmosphere and seawater were not yet oxygenated.  The study of this this new core is part of the research project of  Dr. Joshua Davies (University of Geneva) and of the PhD thesis of Margriet Lantink (University of Utrecht).