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Barberton Archean Surface Environments, Moodies Group, Barberton Greenstone Belt

Project Acronym: BASE | State: Completed | Expedition ID: 5069

Sedimentary rocks of the Moodies Group in the Barberton Greenstone Belt (BGB), South Africa, are about 3.22 Ga old and represent some of the world’s oldest well-preserved shallow-water strata. They reach almost 4 km in stratigraphic thickness, are lithologically variable and were deposited within ca. 1 to 14 Ma. The metamorphic grade is lower greenschist-facies; widespread early-diagenetic silicification preserved micro- and macrotextures virtually without strain.

Moodies strata represent a very-high-magnification record of Archean surface processes and are probably unique worldwide in allowing the regional and temporal contextualization of micro-scale and high-resolution Archean analytical data, comparable or superior to similar strata in Australia’s Pilbara region. Their coastal depositional environment is ideal to investigate and combine data from both marine and terrestrial settings.

Keywords

    Africa, Barberton Greenstone Belt, Early Life Ecology, Moodies, Ocean And Atmosphere, Oxygen, South Africa

Core Repositories

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Principle Investigators (PIs)

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Project Details

Title:
Barberton Archean Surface Environments (BASE), Moodies Group, Barberton Greenstone Belt (BASE)
Proposed in:
2019
Current State:
Completed
Proposal abstract:
n.a.
Geologic age:
Archean
Number of drillsites (drillholes):
n.a.
Drilled length:
n.a.
Cored length:
n.a.
Core recovered, length:
n.a.
Core recovered length / Cored length:
n.a.
Core recovered / Drilled length:
n.a.
Expedition #
5069
Location
Barberton, South Africa
Coordinates
-26.0000, 31.0000
Status
Completed
Expedition acronym
BASE
Expedition #
5069
ICDP ID
ICDP-2019/03
Internal ID
#2028
LDIS ID
4619
Proposals ID
5209

Project Location

Linked Projects

  • ICDP-2017/14 (#1948) BASE — Drilling Workshop: Archean Surface Environments, Moodies Group, Barberton Greenstone Belt

Related Work (by Country)

  • ICDP-2008/02 BARB — Barberton Drilling Project: Peering into the Cradle of Life
  • ICDP-2009/01 BARB — Barberton Drilling Project: Peering into the Cradle of Life
  • ICDP-2008/07 BARB — Barberton Greenstone Belt Drilling Project
  • ICDP-2017/14 BASE — Drilling Workshop: Archean Surface Environments, Moodies Group, Barberton Greenstone Belt
  • ICDP-2013/12 BUSHVELD — A Bushveld Scientific Drilling Project (workshop proposal)
  • ICDP-2019/04 BVDP — The Bushveld Complex Drilling Project (BVDP)
  • ICDP-2002/07 DAFSAM — Drilling Active Fault Zones in Deep Gold Mines of South Africa.
  • ICDP-2005/14 DAFSAM — Drilling Active Faults in South African Mines
  • ICDP-2016/08 DSEIS — Drilling into seismogenic zones of M2.0 - M5.5 earthquakes in deep South African gold mines
  • ICDP-2015/10 DSEIS — Drilling into seismogenic zones of M2.0 - M5.5 earthquakes in deep South African gold mines (DSeis)
  • ICDP-2025/13 PROTEA — Probing the heart of an earthquake and life in the deep subsurface

Core Repositories

Project Timeline

Sampling Party 3

13 - 15 October 2025 at BGR core repository in Berlin

Sampling Party 2

11 - 12 March 2024 at BGR core repository in Berlin

Moratorium

16 September 2023 - 15 September 2025

Sampling Party

11 - 15 September 2023 at BGR core repository in Berlin

Drilling

17 November 2021 - 27 July 2022

Full Proposal Approved

First Full Proposal Submitted

Workshop Held

5 - 10 October 2017 in Barberton, South Africa

Workshop Proposal Approved

Repositories (copy 1)