Australian Archean Drilling Program

Many significant uncertainties exist when it comes to unravelling the co-evolutionary relationship between oxygen and life during the Precambrian.

This multinational project has recovered new cores to address these uncertainties using a wide array of multidisciplinary techniques.

By drilling the best preserved stratigraphic sections through critical intervals of environmental and biotic change through the Precambrian, the sample library will allow multiple proxies for environmental oxygenation and biological evolution to be analysed, thus bringing converging lines of evidence to bear upon the key questions about the gradual emergence of diverse and complex life.

At UQ, high precision geochemical techniques will be applied to investigate the redox sensitive rare earth elements in chemical sediments throughout the cores.