The IPOD programme on passive continental margins

During the past 200 Ma (1 Ma = 106 years) the arrangement of continents and ocean basins has been reorganized from a pattern of one supercontinent, with mainly plate edge, subduction, or active continental margins bordering one essentially contiguous ocean basin, to the present configuration of dispersed continents and several oceans. Most of the world’s present continental margins which were formed during that 200 Ma period are ‘passive’ margins lying within the interiors of lithospheric plates. Several models of rifting and evolution of these passive margins have been proposed. The objectives of IPOD include testing of these models by learning as much as we can about the history of rifting of passive continental margins, their internal structure, distribution of facies, subsidence history, and the nature of the transition and modification of the crust at the margin. These objectives cannot be attained by drilling alone, and geophysical surveying and analysis of samples from the drilling are essential parts of the overall programme.