Day 15 - The Louisiad Plateau

The rock gods were kind to us (again!) and brought us treasures from the deep.

Large igneous province?

We received an ignimbrite from the seafloor, which usually indicate a large igneous province, or LIP. As the name suggests, these are regions where lots of lava has erupted over a large area.

Ignimbrite: igneous rocks made up of crystal and rock fragments in a glass-shard groundmass, albeit the original texture of the groundmass might be obliterated due to high degrees of welding.

Some scientists have reasoned that one should observe a LIP at the start of a volcanic hotspot chain. If the Louisiad Plateau is a LIP, then it may be that the entire region we are sailing over is the birth place of the Tasmantid Seamount chain - and THAT is a very exciting finding!

This ignimbrite could represent the start of the Tasmantid Seamount chain. We'll know for certain when we analyse its geochemistry and find its age. — This ignimbrite could represent the start of the Tasmantid Seamount chain. We’ll know for certain when we analyse its geochemistry and find its age.

Transit Southeast

For now we transit to another location on the Louisiad Plateau. This is the only ignimbrite we’ve found so we want to see if we can find any more ignimbrites at other points on the plateau. But for now we celebrate our discovery with Pavlova.

Pavlova is definitely an Australian invention, as we keep reminding the Kiwi chef onboard.

Last updated on Jun 14, 2022