CDPapua:  A broadband seismic array imaging UHP exhumation in Southeast Papua New Guinea

part of the multi-institutional Continental Dynamics project “How Is Rifting Exhuming the Youngest HP/UHP Rocks on Earth?”

This amphibious broadband experiment sampled the crust and mantle in the D’Entrecastaux Islands and Papuan Peninsula, where metamorphic core complexes have exhumed ultra-high-pressure (UHP) rocks, from 100 km depth to the Earth’s surface, within the last 7-8 Ma.  The array is designed to sample the regions from which these rocks have been exhumed, and may be actively exhuming. 

The CDPapua array is scheduled for deployment in March, 2010, for 18 months.  It includes 31 broad-band seismographs on land, provided by the PASSCAL Instrument Center, and 8 Ocean Bottom Seismographs provided by the OBS Instrument Program.  A longer description, in nonscientific language, can be found on the Fact Sheet here (PDF).  This map shows the proposed array design:

More information will be made available as the experiment gets underway.  All data will be made available through the IRIS DMC.

Lamont-Doherty Scientific Group

Geoff Abers

Jim Gaherty

Roger Buck

Terry Plank

Jordan Garroway

Jin Ge

Collaborating Institutions

Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory

Syracuse University Thermochronology Group

University of Papua New Guinea

U.C. Santa Barbara -- Inst. Crustal Studies

University of Texas Institute for Geophysics

GNS Science New Zealand -- Geodesy

Victoria University

Funding provided by the U.S. National Science Foundation,  Continental Dynamics program, and international partners.

Instruments supported by the IRIS-PASSCAL Instrument Center and the OBSIP Instrument Pool.