In 2017 Sanny Saito from JAMSTEC visited the island to look for evidence of xenoliths – granite inclusions in basalt rock, This was a hunch that when the Lord Howe Island volcano formed 7 million years ago that the lave may have pushed through the newly discovered continental plate Zealandia. As part of this February 2019 trip we did drill basalt samples with inclusions likely to be xenoliths that will be taken to various laboratories in Japan and Australia to be examined for confirmation of crustal materials. We also began a detailed look at the geology as part of a revision of the geology map of the island.
The 2019 geology team
Discussing geology of a boulder fallen from cliff
Drilling cores sample of basalt with xenolith