Principal Investigator: James A. Austin, Jr.
Funded by: Office of Naval Research

STRATAFORM's primary goal is to understand how the complex array of depositional processes on continental margins translates into the preserved stratigraphic record. The primary scales of interest are ~106 years into the past, and ~hundreds of meters into the seafloor. Nested arrays of geophysical data on the shelf and upper slope are the primary means to imaging stratigraphic successions and associated facies architecture. Low resolution (20-100 Hz) multichannel seismic and very high-resolution (500-3500 Hz) single-channel Huntecª profiles have already been collected offshore New Jersey. This project supported a cruise to collect profiles in the intervening frequency band (~30-500 Hz) and to complete detailed grid surveys and assess potential hydrocarbon hazards in the vicinity or proposed ODP drill sites. These sites will comprise a critical segment of the Mid-Atlantic Transect (MAT), that is designed to understand the history of Neogene sea-level on this margin. ODP drilling could also provide valuable ground truth for the geophysical profiles collected in support of STRATAFORM. All of these data support designation of this part of the New Jersey margin as a natural laboratory for marine geology/geophysics and shallow water acoustics.