In September 2016, during a joint drilling campaign of geoscientists from Aachen and Cologne (C-Cluster) and the Spanish Geological Survey (IGME), 170 m of sediment cores have been recovered from the La Janda basin (SW Spain).

A commercial drilling team, supervised by Rosa Mediavilla (IGME), could manage to recover the longest sequence (30 m) from this archive ever. This long record has been drilled in a central position at the southern rim of this half-graben structure. Here, the sediment infill is supposed to be at maximum and further cores (of 13–14 m length each) were taken eastwards and westwards to cover the entire basin. Multi-Sensor Core Logging has already been performed for the long sequence at the IGME laboratories in Madrid.

Two parallel drill cores were recovered by the vibra coring teams: one in transparent tubes, and parallel coring has been performed in opaque tubes for dating. The next step is sampling for dating (OSL and 14C). First age control is expected by the end of January 2017.

Vibra coring in the La Janda basin (SW Spain). Photo: Nicole Höbig

Commercial drilling team recovering a more than 30 m long sediment core from the southern rim of the basin. Photo: Nicole Höbig