Capetown, South Africa, February 12, 2020. Making 200 years since the discovery of Antarctica, the Academic Alexander Karpinsky research vessel of Polar Marine Geosurvey Expedition JSC (PMGE, a subsidiary of Rosgeo) has successfully completed the comprehensive marine geophysical explorations under the program of the 65th Russian Antarctic Expedition. The geologists' objective was to explore the subsurface geological structure and to assess the oil-and-gas bearing prospects of the Antarctic Shelf.
Rosgeo conducted the marine explorations in the south-eastern part of the Riiser-Larsen Sea off the coast of Queen Maud Land. The comprehensive explorations included the common-depth point seismic reflection survey using the 7000 m long towed streamer, multibeam echo-sounder survey, gravimeter observations, and differential shipboard magnetometer survey.
In January 2020, the research vessel Academic Alexander Karpinsky completed the shipboard magnetometer survey in the north-eastern part of the test site. The total amount of hydromagnetic profiles was 950 line km.
The common-depth point seismic reflection survey of 3450 line km in combination with the gravimetric and hydromagnetic measurements, as well as the associated sea floor topography measurements using the multi-beam echo sounder were conducted in late January and early February.
"The Riiser-Larsen Sea area is one of the most underexplored areas within the Indian Ocean part of Antarctica. The research conducted by PMGE in the late 1990s enabled to define the deep structure, tectonic framework, and seismic stratigraphy of the sedimentary basin, but some fundamental scientific problems remained unresolved," — Sergey Kozlov, Chief Geologist of the Polar Marine Geosurvey Expedition, Doctor of Geological and Mineralogical Sciences. "The data obtained during the new expedition and up-to-date methods for numerical simulation of sedimentary basins will make it possible to substantially clarify our expectations of the oil-and-gas bearing prospects of the Antarctic Shelf Seas."
