Since 1985 the Bureau of Mineral Resources (BMR) has been involved in three coring cruises off southwest Victoria and Tasmania. A great amount of laboratory work has been done on the cores, generally on samples taken at 20cm intervals, by technicians in BMR's Division of Marine Geosciences and Petroleum Geology, and the aim of this record is to document the results.
The analytical work has been designed to be complementary to other scientific studies on the cores: physical descriptions, smear slide descriptions, and palaeontological examinations. The aim of all the work has been to adequately describe the variations which have taken place with time in the cores, and to relate these back to regional and local changes in depositional environment. The final intention of the studies is to build up a model of sedimentation on the continental margin which, in conjunction with reflection seismic data, can be used to interpret depositional packages in much older sequences.
The first sampling cruise was carried out in early 1985, aboard the West German research vessel Sonne (S0-36C) in a co-operative venture between BGR (German Geological Survey) and BMR. This survey took 43 cores off west Tasmania and on the South Tasman Rise (Figures 1B and 2) These cores varied in length from 0.55m to 7.78m (Table 1),and full station data are given in Hinz et al. (1985). Bolton et al. (1988)described six cores from the South Tasman Rise containing ferro manganese crust and nodules. Grainsize and CaCO3 analyses for 9 Sonne cores are presented in this Record.
The second sampling cruise, BMR Cruise 67, was carried out by BMR's research vessel Rig Seismic in 1987, off southwest Victoria and western Tasmania (Figures lA and 3). This survey took 54 cores varying in length from 0.10m to 3.64m (Table 2), and full station data are given in Exon, Lee et al. (1987) and Exon, Lee et al. (1989). Grainsize and CaCO3 analyses on 35 cores carried out at BMR are reported here, as well as TOC (Total Organic Carbon %) and CaCO3 analyses from low in 15 cores carried out by AMDEL.
The third sampling cruise, BMR Cruise 78, was carried out by Rig Seismic in 1988, off western Tasmania (Figures 4 and 5). Altogether 38 core stations were occupied, of which 22 were successful. Core recovery varied from 0.02m to 7.33m (Table 3) and full station data will be given in Exon, Lee and Hill (1989). Grainsize and CaCO3 analyses from 10 cores are reported here.
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