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Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche FakultätInstitut für Geologie und Mineralogie

Towuti Drilling Project, Indonesia

Coordination of the international drilling project as Principal Investigator

Lake Towuti (2.5°S, 121°E) is a 560 km2 large, 200 m deep tectonic lake in central Sulawesi, Indonesia. The lake is located in the centre of the Western Pacific Warm Pool, the heart of the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO). Following comprehensive pre-site surveys in 2007-2013, and a workshop in Indonesia in March 2012, scientific deep drilling was carried out on Lake Towuti in 2015, within the scope of the International Continental Scientific Drilling Program (ICDP). Lead principal investigators (PIs) of the Towuti Drilling Project (TDP) are James M. Russel (Brown University, USA), Hendrik Vogel (University of Bern, Switzerland), Satria Bijaksana (Institut Teknologi Bandung, Indonesia) and Martin Melles (University of Cologne, Germany).

Annual average precipitable water content of the Earth’s atmosphere (kg/m2), from the NOAA-ESRL physical sciences division (Kalnay et al. 1996, Bull. Am. Met. Soc. 77: 437-471). Stars mark the locations of past and currently planned ICDP lake drilling projects, with Lake Towuti in the centre of the Western Pacific Warm Pool labelled.

The TDP recovered a total of 1018 m of core from 11 drilling sites with water depths ranging from 156 to 200m. Recovery averaged 91.7%, and the maximum drilling depth was 175m below the lake floor, penetrating the entire sedimentary infill of the basin. The data from the cores and borehole logging record the evolution of this highly dynamic tectonic and limnological system, with clear indications of orbital-scale climate variability during the mid- to late Pleistocene.

A consortium of German scientists has contributed to the TDP in particular with the following investigations:

  • detailed sedimentological, geochemical and chronostratigraphical investigations on drill cores from the northern lake basin (Martin Melles, University of Cologne),
  • evolutionary biological analyses in order to link patterns of organismic diversification with key climatic and environmental events (Thomas von Rintelen, Nat. Hist. Mus. Berlin),
  • analyses of geomicrobiology and autigenic mineral formation for a better understanding of current and perhaps ancient biogeochemical reactions in this unique lake system fed by ferruginous metal substrates (Jens Kallmeyer and Aurèle Vuillemin, GFZ Potsdam),
  • analyses of the lacustrine species flocks in order to link organismic diversification and key environmental events (Fabian Herder, Museum König, Bonn)
  • downhole logging at all three coring sites in order to decipher the in situ sediment stratigraphy and characteristics (Thomas Wonik, LIAG Hannover).

More detailed information on the project and our contribution to the scientific results is provided by Russel et al. (2016), Hasberg et al. (2019), Russel et al. (2020) and other publications.