Supplementary material to “European Science Foundation Magellan Workshop Series on Marine Research Drilling”
Silvia Spezzaferri, Department of Geosciences, University of Fribourg, Fribourg, Switzerland
Citation:
Spezzaferri, S. (2007), European Science Foundation Magellan Workshop Series on marine research drilling, Eos Trans. AGU, 89(5), 39–40.
[Full Article (pdf)]
A fundamental and unanswered question facing Earth and Life scientists today is, What are the important relationships among the hydrosphere, geosphere and biosphere? The geological setting of mound systems and mud volcanoes furnishes a unique natural laboratory for studying and understanding the dynamic interplay among carbonates, geofluids, and biodiversity, while also providing a window into the deep biosphere where elemental cycles and diagenetic processes can be evaluated. In addition to biogeochemical processes, the genetic or causal link between these two structural types can be explored in order to determine if these modern systems are appropriate analogues for ancient mounds found in the sedimentary record.
A Workshop on Marine Research Drilling (Magellan Workshop Series), entitled “Exploring Escarpment Mud Mound Systems and Mud Volcanoes with New European Strategies for Sustainable Mid-depth Coring”, was recently held in Murten, Switzerland, 26-29 April 2007. The workshop, sponsored by the European Science Foundation (ESF; http://www.esf.org/), gathered 20 scientists together, including members of: (1) two large IODP proposals 689 (Mud volcanoes as a window into the Deep Biosphere) and 673 (Atlantic Mound Drilling 2: Morocco Margin), (2) two ongoing ESF EUROCORES projects (MiCROSYSTEMS and CARBONATE) and (3) the large-scale EU FP6 Integrated Project HERMES. The scientists, representing a wide spectrum of disciplines, such as geophysics, sedimentology, palaeoceanography biogeochemistry and geomicrobiology, met with the aim to discuss the best strategies for future studies of these two important geological settings. The leaders of the IODP Proposals 689 and 673, D. Depreiter and J.-P. Henriet, respectively, were invited as keynote speakers.
The workshop was designed to merge: (1) discussions on innovative technology, which addresses the new challenges for site surveying and coring in environmentally sensitive areas with shallow exploratory drilling and lander deployment with (2) multidisciplinary science, boosting the synergy between a palaeoceanography research community and a Deep Biosphere cluster and (3) presentation of the capabilities of Europe's most promising new tool for ocean margin exploratory drilling, the Remotely Controlled Sea-Floor Drill Rig “MeBo” (Meeresboden-Bohrgerät). Developed at the University of Bremen (MARUM), the MeBo was designed to address target objectives, in lieu of highly performing drilling tools as the IODP drilling platforms. Workshop participants agreed the drilling of carbonate mounds and mud volcanoes with MeBo is needed to provide the preliminary framework for future IODP expeditions concentrating on (1) the deep biosphere, (2) the dynamic of fluids, (3) the system variability, (4) the balance between external and internal factors and (5) the role of these peculiar geologic settings as carbon sinks and sources.
The ideas expressed during the Murten workshop will find a broader forum at the first Conference of the Moroccan Association of Petroleum Geologists (MAPG) in Marrakech (October 2007), where J.P. Henriet will present the topic “Mound Drilling for Science and Industry” and at a dedicated session on Modern Mound Research, that will be held in the October 2008 at the AAPG International Conference in Cape Town, South Africa.
SILVIA SPEZZAFERRI, STEPHAN MARGRETH, GIORDANA GENNARI, and KATJA VON ALLMEN, Department of Geosciences, University of Fribourg, Switzerland; e-mail: silvia.spezzaferri@unifr.ch; JEAN-PIERRE HENRIET, DAVY DEPREITER, ANNELEEN FOUBERT and HANS PIRLET, Renard Centre of Marine Geology, Department of Geology and Soil Science, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium; CHRISTIAN DULLO and ANDRES RÜGGEBERG, Leibniz-Institute of Marine Sciences at Kiel University (IFM-GEOMAR), Kiel, Germany; TIM FREUDENTHAL and DIERK HEBBELN, MARUM - Center for Marine Environmental Sciences, University of Bremen, Bremen, Germany; KAI MANGELDORF, GeoForschungsZentrum (GFZ) Potsdam, Organic Geochemistry. Potsdam, Germany; MIEKE THIERENS, RORY O'DONNELL and ANDY WHEELER, Department of Geology and Environmental Research Institute, University College Cork, Cork, Ireland; LUIS MENEZES PINHEIRO, Department Geociências, Universidade de Aveiro, Aveiro, Portugal; MENCHU COMAS, Instituto Andaluz de Ciencias de la Tierra CSIC and University of Granada. Granada, Spain; JUDITH A. MCKENZIE and CRISOGONO VASCONCELOS, ETH-Zentrum, Institute of Geology, Zurich, Switzerland.
Fig. 1. The portable seafloor drill rig Meeresboden-Bohrgerät (MeBo) represents the newest advance and innovation in marine drilling technology at European dimension.
