Investigation of the Andrew Bain transform fault zone (African-Antarctic region)

Study of the ocean floor structure is impossible at present without medium-scale regional geological investigations. Such integrated geological-geophysical investigations were carried out in 2006 in the joint expedition of the Geological Institute (Moscow, Russia) and the Institute of Marine Sciences (Bologna, Italy) during Cruise 23 of the R/V Akademik Nikolai Strakhov under the supervision of Academician Yu.M. Pushcharovsky and Prof. E. Bonatti. We studied the Andrew Bain Fracture Zone (FZ) incorporated into the system of faults separating the floors of the Atlantic and Indian oceans (Fig. 1). The bathymetric survey was conducted with a RESON SeaBat 8150 multibeam echo sounder. Analysis of new data with the results of the earlier bathymetric survey in this region on the R/V Knorr [1] made it possible to compile a bathymetric map for the whole Andrew Bain FZ (Fig. 1). Acoustic and single-channel continuous seismic profiling, the study of geophysical fields, dredging, and seismic works with a multichannel streamer were also carried out during the cruise.