A CCOP/SOPAC cruise funded by Australia, New Zealand, and the United States surveyed parts of the Solomon Islands region in May and June 1982, in order to assess the potential for petroleum accumulations and to identify geologic hazards. Work was concentrated in the central Solomons trough (the Slot) between the islands of Guadalcanal, Santa Ysabel, New Georgia, and Choiseul, where continuous multichannel, single channel, and high resolution seismic records were acquired together with magnetic and gravity profiles.

The Slot is underlain by a composite depositional basin that contains as much as 2.8 mi (4.5 km) of Cenozoic sediments. Despite its complex island-arc setting, submarine volcanoes, and 2,625 to 5,900 ft (800 to 1,800 m) water depths, the basin includes structural, stratigraphic, and possibly thermal elements that favor generation and entrapment of hydrocarbons.

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