Lago Fagnano is believed to straddle part of the fault boundary between the South America and Scotia plates. Its sedimentary fill could preserve a tectonic record of recent plate movements.

Cordilleran Darwin, flanking Lago Fagnano to the west, is uplifting more rapidly (rates up to 20 mm/yr) than any other part of the Andes. Therefore, Lago Fagnano may once have been an arm of the sea, and could also contain marine sediments.

Lago Fagnano sediments may contain a pristine climate record of fluctuations
in the Southern Hemisphere westerly wind system.

Neecho working on Lake Titicaca, Bolivia/Peru. The vessel can acquire seismic profiles for neotectonic studies and can also collect piston cores for a variety of climate-related analyses.

Neecho (now owned by Stanford) was transported from Bolivia to Argentina (CADIC, Ushuaia) in late 2004-early 2005, by truck and by ferry.

Plan: Conduct seismic profiling for neotectonic studies and to identify piston coring sites in March 2005; follow up with piston coring later in 2005 or in 2006.

Personnel involved: CADIC and secondary school teachers/students from the U.S. (with funding from GK-12 (NSF) and JSG).