The Commonwealth is seeking approval to conduct a scientific seismic survey over the Lord Howe Rise in 2016 in collaboration with the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology and contributes to a larger research proposal submitted to the International Ocean Discovery Program that would examine the first deep stratigraphic record for the Cretaceous Eastern Gondwana Margin.

The IODP proposal is to drill a deep stratigraphic hole to a depth of 2-3 km below the seabed in 2018/19, but before that can happen Geoscience Australia and JAMSTEC are required to conduct site assessments, involving a seismic survey in 2016 geotechnical survey in 2017, to inform the selection of drilling sites should the IODP proposal be accepted.

The 2D seismic would be operated from JAMSTEC's Kairei research vessel and will collect up to 900 line km along an east-west transect over six sites being considered for the stratigraphic drilling.

The survey is aimed to take place over 22 days between April and May using Ocean Bottom Seismometer deployment.

The survey will provide new information on the overall geological structure of the Lord Howe Rise, including sediment thickness, crustal architecture, distribution of faults, and seismic velocities of the upper and lower crust and of the mantle.

The results of the survey will advance existing knowledge of the tectonic history of the Lord Howe Rise, and could help better explain the separation of the Lord Howe Rise from Australia and subsequent opening of the Tasman Sea during the break-up of Gondwana.

The proposed survey line is located to collect the broadest geological structure of the rise, but also not encroach into Commonwealth Marine Reserves.

While the proposed survey is described as being strictly for scientific research purposes, and so is not subject to the Offshore Petroleum and Greenhouse Gas Storage Act 2006, the data would no doubt someday help inform explorers about the potential of the rise.

Past drilling has been limited to just 600m, and Geoscience Australia wants to drill into the Cretaceous and older sediments and deep basement rocks up to 3500m below the sea floor using JAMSTEC's Chikyu drillship, which is next year expected to travel to Atlantis Bank, a spot in the Indian Ocean that features one of the thinnest regions of crust on the planet next year and drill into the Earth's mantle.

The mantle has been the target of numerous drilling attempts since the 1960s.

In 2010 GA defined the Lord Howe Rise, the Wallaby Plateau, 500km off the West Australian coast and next to the existing North West Shelf gas zone, and the South Australian end of the Great Australian Bight as promising regions for oil and gas generation, but so far only the Bight has attracted attention of drillers, and not without some degree of controversy.

The Lord Howe Rise is a major submerged plateau that extends almost 2000km from southwest of New Caledonia to the Challenger Plateau, west of New Zealand.

Shell and CNOOC have taken up exploration rights on the New Caledonia Basin, but that work has ground to a halt as the oil price has dwindled and Shell has considered exiting NZ.

The 1.5 million sq.km Lord Howe Rise has water depths between 1000-3000m and is essentially undrilled, but work in recent years suggests the rise contains sedimentary basins that are potentially capable of generating and accumulating petroleum, primarily the deeper sedimentary depocentres of the Central and Western Rift provinces.

Majority of the petroleum generation and migration is expected to have occurred before most trapping structures and the potential regional seal were in place by the Oligocene.

However, a significant amount of generation is also likely after this time. Cenozoic igneous activity may have enhanced late-stage petroleum generation.

On the other hand, the widespread fluid migration triggered by the Cenozoic magmatism is a major risk for seal integrity of the upper post-rift sediments.

Much of the previous petroleum exploration interest in the region related to the possibility of vast gas hydrate occurrences within the post-rift sediments.

Modern exploration would be unlikely in the current environment, while production would have to overcome issues such as the remoteness and a harsh seascape.