New Caledonia Trough

Topographic map of Zealandia with the New Caledonia Trough to the northwest

The New Caledonia Trough (German: New Caledonia Trough ) is a south-west of New Caledonia and northwest of New Zealand sub-sea well (→ Engl .: trough ). It is part of the 4.9 million square kilometers and 94% below sea level area that scientists call Zealandia and that is being advertised as a continent .

Origin of name

The New Caledonia Trough was after the archipelago Caledonia (English New Caledonia ) named, which is adjacent to the northeast of the valley. Originally called New Caledonia Basin , the name was given in June 1997 by the ( GEBCO ) Sub-Committee on Undersea Feature Names (SCUFN), a committee formed by the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission ( of UNESCO ) together with the International Hydrographic Organization in New Caledonia Trough Changed. In some scientific publications the old name is used and the basin is shown in a larger length.

geography

The New Caledonia Trough is a roughly 2,300 km long, 200 to 300 km wide and 1.5 to 3.5 km deep depression between the Lord Howe Rise in the west and New Caledonia and the Norfolk Ridge and the West Norfolk Ridge in the east ( Geographic coordinates 18 ° 50 'S, 161 ° 20' E , geographic coordinates 35 ° 50 'S, 168 ° 15' E ). In the southeast the Aotea Basin joins, which is also called Deepwater Taranaki in other publications or even Norfolk Trough in the GEBCO - Undersea Feature Names Gazetteer . The naming of the continuation of the New Caledonia Trough is currently not uniform and does not seem to have been officially defined so far. -18.833333333333 161.33333333333-35.833333333333 168.25

geology

It is currently assumed that the depression formed from the late Cretaceous to the Eocene and that the continental crust thinned to between five and ten kilometers thick. After that, the depression began to fill with sediments, which led to a total thickness of the current lithosphere of 20 to 40 km in the area. The crust has a composition similar to that of eastern Australia and western New Zealand.

literature

Ron Hackney, Rupert Sutherland, Julien Collot : Rifting and subduction initiation history of the New Caledonia Trough, southwest Pacific, constrained by process-oriented gravity models . In: Oxford University Press (Ed.): Geophysical Journal International . Volume 189 , 2012, pp. 1293–1305 , doi : 10.1111 / j.1365-246X.2012.05441.x (English, online [accessed March 16, 2017]).
Nick Mortimer , Hamish Campbell : Zealandia - Our Continent Revealed . Penguin Books , London 2014, ISBN 978-0-14-357156-8 (English).
Nick Mortimer et al. 10 co-authors: Zealandia: Earth's Hidden Continent . In: Geological Society of America (Ed.): GSA Today . Volume 27 Issue 3 (March / April), 2017, doi : 10.1130 / GSATG321A.1 (English, online [accessed on March 16, 2017]).

Individual evidence

↑ Mortimer et al. 10 co-authors: Zealandia: Earth's Hidden Continent . In: GSA Today . 2017, p. 1 .
^ ^A ^b New Caledonia Trough . In: GEBCO - Undersea Feature Names Gazetteer . National Centers for Environmental Information (NOAA), accessed on March 16, 2017 (English, interactive map for selecting the geographical object).
↑ 12th SCUFN Meeting - Report . (PDF 825 kB) International Hydrographic Organization , June 1997, accessed on March 16, 2017 (English, the coordinates in the report are no longer valid.).
^ Fairway Basin and Ridge New Caledonia Basin and Norfolk Ridge . Geoscience Australia , accessed March 16, 2017 .
^ ^A ^b Hackney, Sutherland, Collot : Rifting and subduction initiation history of the New Caledonia Trough, southwest Pacific, constrained by process-oriented gravity models . In: Geophysical Journal International . 2012, p. 1293 .
↑ The coordinates of the New Caledonia Trough } were made by Google Earth .
^ Mortimer, Campbell : Zealandia - Our Continent Revealed . 2014, p. 149 .
↑ Hackney, Sutherland, Collot : Rifting and subduction initiation history of the New Caledonia Trough, southwest Pacific, constrained by process-oriented gravity models . In: Geophysical Journal International . 2012, p. 1294 .

Map with all coordinates: OSM | WikiMap

[GSA_Today_Zealandia_S1-1] Mortimer et al. 10 co-authors: Zealandia: Earth's Hidden Continent . In: GSA Today . 2017, p. 1 .

[GEBCO_New_Caledonia_Trough-2] A ^b New Caledonia Trough . In: GEBCO - Undersea Feature Names Gazetteer . National Centers for Environmental Information (NOAA), accessed on March 16, 2017 (English, interactive map for selecting the geographical object).

[IHO_SCUFN12_Report-3] 12th SCUFN Meeting - Report . (PDF 825 kB) International Hydrographic Organization , June 1997, accessed on March 16, 2017 (English, the coordinates in the report are no longer valid.).

[Geoscience_Australia-4] Fairway Basin and Ridge New Caledonia Basin and Norfolk Ridge . Geoscience Australia , accessed March 16, 2017 .

[Hackney_Sutherland_Collot_S1293-5] A ^b Hackney, Sutherland, Collot : Rifting and subduction initiation history of the New Caledonia Trough, southwest Pacific, constrained by process-oriented gravity models . In: Geophysical Journal International . 2012, p. 1293 .

[Google_Earth-6] The coordinates of the New Caledonia Trough } were made by Google Earth .

[Mortimer_Campbell_S149-7] Mortimer, Campbell : Zealandia - Our Continent Revealed . 2014, p. 149 .

[Hackney_Sutherland_Collot_S1294-8] Hackney, Sutherland, Collot : Rifting and subduction initiation history of the New Caledonia Trough, southwest Pacific, constrained by process-oriented gravity models . In: Geophysical Journal International . 2012, p. 1294 .