The Towuti Drilling Project (TDP) is an international research program, whose objective is to understand long-term
environmental and climatic change in the tropical western Pacific, the impacts of geological and environmental changes on the biological evolution of aquatic taxa, and the geomicrobiology and biogeochemistry of metal-rich, ultramafichosted lake sediment.

An evolutionary history of the western Pacific is presented by reconstructing the spreading systems of the region since Middle Mesozoic time on the basis of marine magnetic lineations, paleomagnetic data, DSDP results, and selected other data. Subduction along the Asian plate margin throughout this time has resulted in genera1 northward movement of the plates surrounding Asia. An E-W spreading ridge system, offset by N-S transform faults of great length, extended from the Pacific into the Tethys Sea and migrated north as the oceanic plates to the north were being subducted along Asia.