The iGoM project is an integration of geology and geophysics in the Gulf of Mexico basin, from north of the Marathon-Ouachita-Suwanee Suture, to south of the Sigsbee Escarpment and into the abyssal plain.
The project duration is 3 years beginning in Fall 2014. Sponsorship is $25,000 per year.
We study and integrate rocks (outcrop and well samples), seismic, well, potential fields data, and geodynamic results.
Components of the iGoM project to be carried out by the principle investigators and their students include:
- Study of volcanic and plutonic rocks, such as the Cretaceous volcanic fields of Texas, Louisiana and Arkansas, as well as intrusive bodies such as Jackson Dome and Magnet Cove:
- Quantitative data: composition, age and chemistry
- Integrated with iGoM results: seismic, well, potential fields, and geodynamics
- Models of the thermal and deformation history of the rocks surrounding intrusions
- Interpretation of seismic reflection data (many thanks to in-kind participant, ION – GulfSPAN Merge2), controlled by well data (many thanks to in-kind participant, DrillingInfo):
- Basin geometries
- Shape of igneous bodies
- Regional maps of significant horizons
- Potential fields studies such as forward and inverse modeling, depth-to-magnetic source estimation, and map interpretations of enhanced gravity and magnetic anomalies (residuals, derivatives, etc.):
- Basin geometries
- Shape of igneous bodies
- Depth and thickness of crystalline crust
- Studies of the crystalline crust and lithospheric mantle through surface wave tomography and geodynamic modeling
- Regional heat flow patterns
- Seismic velocity of the crust and mantle
- Anisotropy of the mantle
- Lithosphere/Asthenosphere boundary depth
- Basin evolution
