TY - JOUR

T1 - Drilling Overdeepened Alpine Valleys (ICDP-DOVE)

T2 - quantifying the age, extent, and environmental impact of Alpine glaciations

AU - Dove Scientific Team

AU - Anselmetti, Flavio S.

AU - Bavec, Milos

AU - Crouzet, Christian

AU - Fiebig, Markus

AU - Gabriel, Gerald

AU - Preusser, Frank

AU - Ravazzi, Cesare

AU - Ariztegui, Daniel

AU - Beraus, Sarah

AU - Brandt, Anna Catharina

AU - Buechi, Marius

AU - Buness, Herman

AU - Burschil, Thomas

AU - Dehnert, Andreas

AU - Deplazes, Gaudenz

AU - Götzl, Gregor

AU - Firla, Gustav

AU - Gegg, Lukas

AU - Graf, Hans Rudolf

AU - Heeschen, Katja

AU - Kipfer, Rolf

AU - Kroemer, Ernst

AU - Lüthgens, Christopher

AU - Monegato, Giovanni

AU - Neuhuber, Stephanie

AU - Pini, Roberta

AU - Reitner, Jürgen

AU - Salcher, Bernhard

AU - Schaller, Sebastian

AU - Schmalfuss, Clemens

AU - Schmelzbach, Cedric

AU - Scholger, Robert

AU - Schuster, Bennet

AU - Stumpf, Andrew

AU - Tanner, David C.

AU - Thomas, Camille

AU - Tomonaga, Yama

AU - Wieland-Schuster, Ulrike

AU - Wonik, Thomas

N1 - Publisher Copyright: © Copyright:

PY - 2022/10/28

Y1 - 2022/10/28

N2 - The sedimentary infill of glacially overdeepened valleys (i.e., structures eroded below the fluvial base level) is an excellent but yet underexplored archive with regard to the age, extent, and nature of past glaciations. The ICDP project DOVE (Drilling Overdeepened Alpine Valleys) Phase 1 investigates a series of drill cores from glacially overdeepened troughs at several locations along the northern front of the Alps. All sites will be investigated with regard to several aspects of environmental dynamics during the Quaternary, with focus on the glaciation, vegetation, and landscape history. Geophysical methods (e.g., seismic surveys), for example, will explore the geometry of overdeepened structures to better understand the process of overdeepening. Sedimentological analyses combined with downhole logging, analysis of biological remains, and state-of-the-art geochronological methods, will enable us to reconstruct the erosion and sedimentation history of the overdeepened troughs. This approach is expected to yield significant novel data quantifying the extent and timing of Middle and Late Pleistocene glaciations of the Alps. In a first phase, two sites were drilled in late 2021 into filled overdeepenings below the paleolobe of the Rhine Glacier, and both recovered a trough filling composed of multiphase glacial sequences. Fully cored Hole 5068_1_C reached a depth of 165m and recovered 10m molasse bedrock at the base. This hole will be used together with two flush holes (5068_1_A, 5068_1_B) for further geophysical cross-well experiments. Site 5068_2 reached a depth of 255m and bottomed out near the soft rock-bedrock contact. These two sites are complemented by three legacy drill sites that previously recovered filled overdeepenings below the more eastern Alpine Isar-Loisach, Salzach, and Traun paleoglacier lobes (5068_3, 5068_4, 5068_5). All analysis and interpretations of this DOVE Phase 1 will eventually lay the ground for an upcoming Phase 2 that will complete the pan-Alpine approach. This follow-up phase will investigate overdeepenings formerly occupied by paleoglacier lobes from the western and southern Alpine margins through drilling sites in France, Italy, and Slovenia. Available geological information and infrastructure make the Alps an ideal area to study overdeepened structures; however, the expected results of this study will not be restricted to the Alps. Such features are also known from other formerly glaciated mountain ranges, which are less studied than the Alps and more problematic with regards to drilling logistics. The results of this study will serve as textbook concepts to understand a full range of geological processes relevant to formerly glaciated areas all over our planet.

AB - The sedimentary infill of glacially overdeepened valleys (i.e., structures eroded below the fluvial base level) is an excellent but yet underexplored archive with regard to the age, extent, and nature of past glaciations. The ICDP project DOVE (Drilling Overdeepened Alpine Valleys) Phase 1 investigates a series of drill cores from glacially overdeepened troughs at several locations along the northern front of the Alps. All sites will be investigated with regard to several aspects of environmental dynamics during the Quaternary, with focus on the glaciation, vegetation, and landscape history. Geophysical methods (e.g., seismic surveys), for example, will explore the geometry of overdeepened structures to better understand the process of overdeepening. Sedimentological analyses combined with downhole logging, analysis of biological remains, and state-of-the-art geochronological methods, will enable us to reconstruct the erosion and sedimentation history of the overdeepened troughs. This approach is expected to yield significant novel data quantifying the extent and timing of Middle and Late Pleistocene glaciations of the Alps. In a first phase, two sites were drilled in late 2021 into filled overdeepenings below the paleolobe of the Rhine Glacier, and both recovered a trough filling composed of multiphase glacial sequences. Fully cored Hole 5068_1_C reached a depth of 165m and recovered 10m molasse bedrock at the base. This hole will be used together with two flush holes (5068_1_A, 5068_1_B) for further geophysical cross-well experiments. Site 5068_2 reached a depth of 255m and bottomed out near the soft rock-bedrock contact. These two sites are complemented by three legacy drill sites that previously recovered filled overdeepenings below the more eastern Alpine Isar-Loisach, Salzach, and Traun paleoglacier lobes (5068_3, 5068_4, 5068_5). All analysis and interpretations of this DOVE Phase 1 will eventually lay the ground for an upcoming Phase 2 that will complete the pan-Alpine approach. This follow-up phase will investigate overdeepenings formerly occupied by paleoglacier lobes from the western and southern Alpine margins through drilling sites in France, Italy, and Slovenia. Available geological information and infrastructure make the Alps an ideal area to study overdeepened structures; however, the expected results of this study will not be restricted to the Alps. Such features are also known from other formerly glaciated mountain ranges, which are less studied than the Alps and more problematic with regards to drilling logistics. The results of this study will serve as textbook concepts to understand a full range of geological processes relevant to formerly glaciated areas all over our planet.

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85141937567&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.5194/sd-31-51-2022

DO - 10.5194/sd-31-51-2022

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:85141937567

VL - 31.2022

SP - 51

EP - 70

JO - Scientific Drilling

JF - Scientific Drilling

SN - 1816-8957

IS - October

ER -