Future Ocean Conferences

3rd Young Scientists Excellence Cluster Conference

This confernence is intended to bring together young marine scientists on a PhD student ort postdoc level from the marine Clusters of Excellences in Northern Germany from Kiel, Hamurg and Bremen. The conference takes place in alternating turns at the mentioned locations. It typically takes place in the first week of October.

Future Ocean Annual Retreat

Annual Retreat of the Cluster of Excellence ‘The Future Ocean’

The International Marine Past global changes Study

Status

Version: 01.09.2003

  1. IMAGES PURPOSE AND SCIENTIFIC OBJECTIVES

1.1. IMAGES purpose
1.2. Scientific objectives

  1. IMAGES STRATEGY

2.1. Major tasks of the program
2.2. Facilities and drilling requirement - ODP-IMAGES relationships

  1. METHODOLOGIES

3.1. Site survey and coring
3.2. Paleo-environmental proxies
3.3. Chronology and stratigraphy

  1. IMAGES PARTICIPATION

4.1. Definition and role of IMAGES partners
4.2. Oceanographic cruises
4.3. Access to IMAGES cores and data
4.4. Contribution to IMAGES
4.5. Contract with the CNRS

  1. IMAGES MANAGEMENT

5.1. Scientific Committee
5.2. Executive Committee
5.3. Secretariat
5.4. Finance committee

  1. IMAGES BUDGET AND PARTNERS CONTRIBUTION

  2. IMAGES PURPOSE AND SCIENTIFIC OBJECTIVES

1.1. IMAGES purpose.1. IMAGES purpose

IMAGES has been initiated to respond to the challenge of understanding the mechanisms and consequences of climatic changes using oceanic sedimentary records. Climatic mechanisms must be studied at global scale using sophisticated models based on high quality data that represent the variability of surface and deep ocean physical and chemical characteristics during key periods of recent earth history. Individual research is no longer sufficient to resolve this problem because the acquisition of the required, long sediment cores in high sedimentation rate areas is expensive, and the proper study of such cores demands the use of multiple tools and large numbers of measurements.

IMAGES has been built as an international effort for the marine sediment research of PAGES-IGBP, with the support of SCOR. The major goal of IMAGES is to foster co-ordination, at the international level, of scientific programs that address the scientific goals outlined in the IMAGES “Science and Implementation Plan”. Operational support, based on specific scientific proposals, is sought from national or international scientific agencies.

1.2. Scientific objectives

The overriding IMAGES science issue is to quantify climate and chemical variability of the ocean on time scales of oceanic and cryospheric processes; to determine its sensitivity to identified internal and external forcings, and to determine its role in controlling atmospheric CO2.

In order to achieve these scientific objectives, IMAGES proposes to co-ordinate a global program to collect and study marine sediment records to address three fundamental questions:

How have changes in surface ocean properties controlled the evolution of global heat transfer through the deep and surface ocean and thereby modified climate ?
How have changes in ocean circulation, ocean chemistry, and biological activity interacted to generate the observed record of atmospheric pCO2 over the past 900 kyr ?
How closely has continental climate linked to ocean surface and deep water properties ?

  1. IMAGES STRATEGY

2.1. Major tasks of the program

IMAGES will act under the guidance of its scientific and executive committees:

by co-ordinating the acquisition of the sediment cores and the distribution of samples necessary to satisfy IMAGES scientific objectives
by collecting and distributing the resulting data.
These actions will require :

the organisation of workshops and conferences;
the creation of short-lived, working groups mandated by IMAGES to resolve specific tasks such as the preparation and co-ordination of oceanographic cruises and the integration of data needed to reconstruct the natural variability of the oceanic system over the last several hundred thousand years with the necessary spatial resolution;
the co-ordination of international cruises and the acquisition, analysis and sharing of the large amount of quantitative paleoceanographic data needed to characterise past oceanographic conditions;
the active participation in the compilation of the data acquired by the scientific community and their integration in a format useful for climatic research (the treatment of the paleoclimatic data in order to make them accessible to climate modellers and the definition of the physical and geochemical processes which may be significant for long term climatic changes).
the publication of reports and newsletters;
the promotion of IMAGES goals and methods within the international and national scientific communities.
2.2. Facilities and drilling requirement - ODP-IMAGES relationships

The major scientific issues presented above can only be achieved through the examination of the records preserved in ocean sediments. At least 30 dedicated oceanographic expeditions will be necessary over the next decade to collect appropriate sediment samples and supporting data. In order to obtain the necessary temporal resolution for IMAGES objectives, one will have to sample in regions of the ocean where sedimentation rates are of the order or higher than 10 cm/kyr. This, combined with the necessity for 300,000 year or longer records, requires core lengths of no less than 15 meters. For many areas, core lengths of at least 30 m and as great as 50 to 75 m will be necessary. Most coring platforms available can only retrieve cores that are less than about 20 m in length. The French R/V Marion Dufresne is presently the only ship which is able routinely to retrieve piston cores of 30 to 50 m length. IMAGES will rely on (and advise) the Ocean Drilling Program for the acquisition of longer sedimentary sequences (50 to 250 m) which are necessary to study both very high sedimentation rates areas (50 cm/kyr and more) and longer time series.

Several platforms permitting sediment coring of several tens of meters will be necessary to implement IMAGES on a global basis. Some ships may be available for long coring (around 30 m in length) after small or large modifications of their structure have been made.
Technical working groups will be initiated both at national and international levels to study the feasibility of “mobile coring packages” (winch, cable and giant corer) which can be adapted on specific large ocean going vessels from the international community.

  1. METHODOLOGIES

3.1. Site survey and coring

The major requirement of the project is the availability of long sediment cores. High resolution seismic imaging of the upper 50-300 m of the sedimentary cover as well as sea floor mapping techniques are required to locate good quality coring sites efficiently. Additional data should include hydrographic profiles, including CTD and near-bottom water samples.

3.2. Paleo-environmental proxies

In order to address the IMAGES objectives it is essential that we are able to extract from the preserved sedimentological record quantitative estimates of past ocean and climate properties. Proxies are available to estimate most of the major oceanic properties, but all of them require a continued development. Several of these tracers are especially important for the reconstruction of paleo-hydrology and the carbon cycle in the oceans:

3.3. Chronology and stratigraphy

Stratigraphy and chronology will require that important efforts should be devoted to the acquisition of high-resolution d18O records. Furthermore, recent development in the acquisition of near-continuous records of sediment physical properties (e.g. density, remnant magnetic intensity, colour reflectance) are very promising in the development of high resolution chronostratigraphy (down to centuries).

Absolute dating of key periods is mandatory. More AMS 14C analyses of foraminifera are necessary for precise dating of the oceanic history over the last 40 kyr. Other material may be dated and correlated within paleoceanographic records : U/Th of corals (sea level), K/Ar of volcanic material (tephrochronology). They should allow a progressive extension of the absolute time scale over the last several thousand years.
It is also essential to develop improved methods to correlate ocean-, continent-, and ice paleo-records together.

  1. IMAGES PARTICIPATION

4.1. Definition and role of IMAGES partners

Research within IMAGES works on the principle that samples and data must be made available to the international community. Acceptance of this principle is a requirement for participation in IMAGES.

IMAGES is built as an international association of single national “partners”. Each IMAGES partner commits a multi-year, national effort in the IMAGES activities and acts on behalf of their entire community. When and where such a national representation is not possible, partners acting on behalf of multi- or single-institutional and multi-annual scientific programs may be proposed in lieu of national memberships.

Memberships will be discussed by the IMAGES scientific Committee after submission from an official body representative of that country or consortium. IMAGES membership implies a long-term commitment to IMAGES goals and activities.

IMAGES derives most of its budget from the participation of its partners. Therefore, all partners should try to raise the annual fee for the IMAGES budget, but may not be refused on the ground that they are not able to do it, if these countries belong to SCOR or IGBP. Any smaller contribution is acceptable in such a case but this should stay the exception, more or less limited to developing countries, or as a one year transition for countries in the process of joining with a full share.

Funding for the IMAGES program includes funding for all the other IMAGES activities: organisation, data, information, working groups, reports…

Each IMAGES partner is entitled to one representative in the scientific committee. To nominate a representative to SciCom, a partner shall provide to the IMAGES secretariat written documentation that includes :

Partners participate with equal rights in the scientific activities of the program. Full funding partners have, however, special administrative privileges because they are in charge of providing most of the IMAGES finance. They comprise at least four of the seven members of the Executive Committee. They may bid for hosting the IMAGES Secretariat and for the Executive Directorship for each three-years period. They may chair the yearly planning groups.

IMAGES partners will prepare and co-ordinate international cruises, working groups and workshops within the IMAGES Scientific Committee.

They elect the members of the Executive Committee, and propose nominees for the Chairman of the Scientific Committee and the Executive Director, who are appointed by the parent bodies (IGBP-PAGES and SCOR)
They elect the scientific experts and the program chairs for the next 2 years

IMAGES will facilitate access of developing countries - or countries without adequate ocean going coring ships - to coring cruises and sediment sampling. On a case by case basis, some funding gathered from parent organisations PAGES and SCOR or exceptionally taken from IMAGES budget could be allocated to help participation of developing countries to coring cruises or IMAGES steering committees (i.e. to pay for plane tickets).

4.2. Oceanographic cruises

The acquisition of long sediment cores is a major task of the program. A planning group will be created each year (n) by the Scientific Committee for the planning and co-ordination of the international oceanographic coring cruises for the following year (n+1). A planning group chair will be nominated by the Scientific Committee. He or she will be ex-officio member of the Executive Committee for the years n and n+1.

An independent role is given, on an ad-hoc basis, to the Principal Investigators who co-finance the international oceanographic cruises following IMAGES principles. Principal Investigators have a leading role in the planning, participation, co-ordination and exploitation of these specific cruises. They are members of the planning group which corresponds to their year’s activity.
Individual participation in cruises will be decided on an ad-hoc basis by the operational group in charge of each cruise (see below).

Funding for participation in specific international cruises is independent from the funding of the IMAGES program. It is prepared in relation with the Secretariat.

4.3. Access to IMAGES cores and data

Cruise participants and related scientists (e.g. shore-based scientists active in the planning of specific cruises) will have a two-year period of exclusive access to the samples and data collected in IMAGES operations. The data will be made available to the whole scientific community at the end of that two-year period.
Scientists conducting an IMAGES-related research project will have an additional period of three years of privileged access to the sediment cores and samples collected under the responsibility of IMAGES partners and archived under IMAGES guidelines. After this period, an open access policy is encouraged. In addition, IMAGES, in the interest of international co-operation, strongly encourages IMAGES partners to have a policy of open access to all sediment archives within their institutional control.

4.4. Contribution to IMAGES

Partners are committed to submit data to the IMAGES database and to provide the secretariat with the pieces of information necessary for IMAGES activity. Of special interest are the regularly updated pieces of information on funded, IMAGES-related proposals and activities and the possible opportunities for international participation: coring cruises, major analytical systems, core collections, workshops and meetings. Partners will initiate proposals and will help to organise financial support for national or international IMAGES-type activities: coring cruises, acquisition of ancillary data (sediment cores description, physical properties and biostratigraphy, high-resolution bathymetric and bottom sediment imaging…), analytical tools, exchange of scientists and post-docs, meetings and publications.

4.5. Contract with the institution, hosting the IMAGES office

Each membership fee will be paid following the terms of a research contract which will be signed between the different partners or their representatives, on the one hand, and the Institution hosting the IMAGES office, on the other hand. These fees will cover the budget for Secretarial and Executive expenses, salary for a scientific officer in charge of the data gathering and distribution (data manager), and support for workshops, working groups and publications.

  1. IMAGES MANAGEMENT

5.1. Scientific Committee

5.1.1 role

Overall science planning is done through the Scientific Committee (Scicom), which meets at least once a year. This committee identifies major scientific objectives and prioritises coring operations that would benefit from international co-ordination. For these purposes, the Scientific Committee establishes working groups for detailed examination of specific scientific objectives and projects.

Some of these groups will be devoted for selection of target areas for upcoming coring cruise(s) and will evolve in Planning Groups when time is come to raise the funding for cruise(s) organisation. A certain amount of flexibility should be kept in the implementation plan to be able to handle efficiently the “burning science”. However, it is important to set up priorities for a period of 2 years to insure efficient organisation and co-ordination of IMAGES cruises which are funded through multi-national proposals. The planning group chairs will play a fundamental role for IMAGES activity. Planning group chairs will be chosen by Scicom among full funding countries and the major proponents for the target year activity. The planning groups membership will be in large part based on the major actors in the target year ocean cruises and other large scale activities.

The Scientific Committee establishes standing groups for examination of specific aspects of marine data acquisition or management that present an interest for IMAGES objectives (i.e. development of new imaging techniques on deep-sea cores, organisation of IMAGES database).
The Scientific Committee initiates workshops on scientific objectives that could benefit from an enhanced international effort within IMAGES.

Additionally, the IMAGES Scientific Committee promotes:

Decisions made by this committee will be carried on by the Executive Committee.

5.1.2 Members

5.1.2.1 - Voting members

the representatives or alternates of each partner (whatever the level of funding)
a few (less than 30 %) scientific experts in the field of IMAGES research.
the IMAGES Scientific Committee chairman.
They will be nominated for 3 years (with strong recommendation to national bodies for no more than 2 consecutive mandates for their representatives.).
The Executive Director heads the Secretariat. The position should normally rotate each 3 years between full funding partners.

5.1.2.2 - Non-voting members and invited personalities

the IMAGES Executive Director, who attends all the meetings of the Scientific Committee
working Groups, Planning Groups and Standing Committees chairs
Representatives of associated programs (ODP, PAGES core programs…) or of major funding agencies.
Scientists invited to individual Scicom meetings by the Executive for specific tasks or discussions.
Representatives of the parent organisations PAGES and SCOR, and from the World Data base (NGDC-Boulder) are permanently invited.
5.2. Executive Committee

Its major functions are to advise the Executive Director and to carry out the decisions and prioritisation made by the Scientific Committee, within the limitations of the IMAGES budget. Given these limitations, the Executive Committee will identify actions that can be supported financially by IMAGES, without modifying the prioritisation made by the Scientific Committee. The Executive Committee may also propose important objectives of research to the Scientific Committee. When necessary, the Excom initiates activities not yet discussed by the Scicom, but the Scicom members must be immediately informed (and whenever possible informed prior to the decision, in time for reactions). The Scicom will review a posteriori these activities, as well as the results of past decisions.

The co-ordination will consist in ensuring a genuine international collaboration, and promoting international funding for IMAGES; the committee will interact with national funding agencies and scientific community and help to co-ordinate proposals at international level between funding agencies.

The Excom is composed of 7 voting members (at least 4 of those belong to full funding countries) : the Chairman of the Scicom (which chairs the Excom), 3 members elected by the Scientific Committee and the 2 chairman of the cruise planning groups (years n and n+1, ref. 4.2).

The Excom may need additional invited (non voting) members for specific tasks. The Excom members are elected for a period of 3 years with no more than 2 consecutive terms. It is desirable for continuous efficiency that a large part but not all of the Excom is renewed at each term. The Excom meets at least 2 times per year (once at the occasion of the Scicom, once independently) and more if necessary (on demand of the Executive Director, the Chairman, or three of the members). It acts as a permanent council on behalf of the Scientific Committee and works by correspondence (e-mail) between meetings. It is informed of all decisions and actions of the Executive Director.

5.3. Secretariat

Its main responsibility is to ensure, by its daily activities, that IMAGES reaches its scientific objectives within IGBP/PAGES and as a SCOR associate.
The tasks are to accumulate, collect and distribute data; to check that they are archived properly; to promote exchanges of information and discussions through scientific publications, workshops and meetings. A scientific position (data manager) will be created to develop the data base with links to the World Data Centers (WDC A in Boulder, WDC B in Bremerhaven).
Other tasks are to overview sample distribution and the co-ordination of cruise plans; to inform the scientific community about the activities and researches within IMAGES (including research ship schedules and results) through the IMAGES World Wide Web information site; to organise funding for the IMAGES bodies (Scicom, Excom and Secretariat); to write reports to SCOR, PAGES and the funding agencies.

5.4. Finance committee

Renewed each year, it is responsible for evaluation of the IMAGES budget (checking up of accounts for the current year and propositions for the upcoming year), during the annual Scientific Committee meeting. Members belong to the Scientific Committee and are independent of the Executive Office and the Secretariat.

  1. IMAGES BUDGET AND PARTNERS CONTRIBUTION

Target Budget elements with 12 full funding members: income $US 120,000

Expenses of the Executive office + the Secretariat $US 120,000.

The main posts for the budget are :

half time salary for a scientific officer (Assistant Director) position
salary, insurance and travel for a scientific position in charge of data handling (Data Manager)
publications
supplies, phone and mail, travel for the secretariat activities
workshops and working groups
The budget will be adjusted following Scicom prioritisation.

The salaried positions represent a basic need for the program:
As part of IGBP-PAGES, IMAGES will have to produce the data and global integration necessary for the monitoring of past changes in ocean hydrology, dynamic and bio-geochemistry, in direct relation with the ice sheets/atmosphere and continental records. The data-management scientist will assist and organise/control acquisition of the necessary data for all the major international cruises and whenever needed. He or she will also assist or be in charge of the regional and global data integration, in direct collaboration with the scientists who created it. His or her last responsibility will be in the quality control, archiving and distribution of the data, in direct co-operation with the World Data Centers. He will act under the Executive Director responsibility, with guidance from the standing group on Data management.

Membership and Activity

Executive Office Location

Time Location CEO
1996—2000: Gif-Sur-Yvette, France Laurent Labeyrie
2000—2003: Kiel, Germany Michael Sarnthein
2004—2007: Bremen, Germany Ralph Schneider

Meetings and Minutes

Scicom-Meetings Excom-Meetings

Executive Committee Members

Bill Curry - Chair
Eelco Rohling - Vice-Chair
Francis Grousset
Eystein Jansen
Laurent Labeyrie
José Abel Flores
Hodaka Kawahata
Jon Eiriksson
Tom Pedersen

Scicom Members

List of national reports and representatives

Scientific Experts

Edward Boyle
Rob Dunbar
Catherine Kissel
Andreas Mackensen
Olivier Marchal
Alan Mix
Nick Shackleton
Todd Sowers
Paul Valdes
Rainer Zahn

Invited permanently

Dave Anderson, World Data Base-NGDC, Boulder, USA
Ed Urban, SCOR Exec. Dir.
Roberto Purini, SCOR representative
Keith Alverson, PAGES Science Officer
Min Te Chen, Chair of the WEPAMA working group
Ralph Schneider, IMAGES Executive Director
Nicolas Dittert , IMAGES Assistant Director
Frank Rack, Assistant Director of JOI
Stefan Rothe, IMAGES Data Manager
Franck Bassinot

Working Groups and Standing Committees

Working Group
Status Name Contact
WG01

North Atlantic Ultra High Resolution Eystein Jansen
WG02

WEPAMA: West Pacific Margins Min-Te Chen
WG03

SEAMONS: South East Asian Monsoon (with SCOR) P. Wang
WG04

Western Margins of the Americas - Alaska to Chile T. Pedersen and A. Mix
WG05

EPILOG: Re-evaluation of the LGM A. Mix, E. Bard and R. Schneider
WG06

Terminal Millenial Synthesis of the last 80 kyr M. Sarnthein and J. Kennet
WG07

Southern Ocean R. Dunbar and A. Mackensen
WG08


Icesheet-Ocean Interaction J. Andrews and E. Jansen
WG09

HWG Holocene Climate Variability P. de Menocal and F. Grousset
WG10

Reconstruction of Past Ocean Circulation J. Lynch-Stieglitz and C. Kissel
WG11

Links Between Present Oceanic Processes and Paleo-Records K. Lochte and M.-A. Sicre
WG12

PEPD: Past Equatorial Pacific Dynamics Min-Te Chen and Luc Beaufort

Standing Groups
Name
Contact
DAC
Data Advisory Committee M. Sarnthein

WG1 - North Atlantic Ultra High Resolution

Chair: E. Jansen. WG1 focused on the preparation of the Marion Dufresne 1999 cruise in North Atlantic, Labrador Sea, Norwegian Sea, and numerous fjords and estuaries along the track. The main target was to obtain giant cores in high accumulation rate sediments, if possible with annual varves, at about 100 stations along two general meridional transect in the Eastern and Western margins of the northern Atlantic and Nordic seas. This was the major operation for IMAGES in 99: a three months cruise, with USA, Norway, France, Iceland, Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark, Canada, UK, Sweden as participants.

WG2 - WEPAMA (West Pacific Margins)

Chair : M-T. Chen. WG2 focused on the preparation of cruise and data integration for the study of heat flux variability along the northwest Pacific margin.
Objective: preparation of a giant coring cruise by the year 2000. An IMAGES WEPAMA Meeting was held on Jan 28, 1999, in Kaohsiung, Taiwan (minutes of this meeting)

The 2001 WEPAMA-Meeting was held on February 22, 23 2001 in Nankang, Taipeh (agenda of this meeting)

The WEPAMA-cruise (IMAGES VII) took place in June and July 2001

WG3 - SEAMONS (South East Asian Monsoon)

Chair : P. Wang. WG3 focused on the variability of the East Asian Monsoon. Three workshops or symposium were programmed for 2000 - 2002 and served to select objectives for IMAGES and ODP cruises. In May 1999 a workshop was held in Amsterdam, the Netherlands: ‘Proxies for Seasonal and Interannual Variability of the Monsoon System’ (minutes). For more information contact Gerald Ganssen.

In 2001 a meeting, entitled “Asian Monsoons and Global Linkages on Milankovitch and Sub-Milanchovitch Timescales” was organized in Beijing. A short report of this meeting is included in the

SEAMONS Annual Report 2001 (PDF)

2002 was the final year of the WG. At the WG’s last meeting in Aix-en-Provence, France, late in 2002, questions of synthesis nature, e.g. relationships between winter and summer monsoons, the role of the Asian monsoon in the global climate system, etc. were discussed.

WG4 - Western Margins of the Americas

Chairs : T. Pedersen and A. Mix. WG4 focused on the preparation of a giant coring cruise in the Pacific Ocean.
A Marion Dufresne cruise in the Northeast Pacific Ocean in Summer 2002 (MONA) was prepared and took place, with Canada, USA, Germany, Japan, France, China, Taiwan and Mexico as participating members.

WG5 - EPILOG (Environmental Processes of the Ice Age: Land, Ocean and Glaciers)

Chairs: A. Mix, E. Bard, and R. Schneider. The aim of the EPILOG Project is to establish a new and comprehensive evaluation of the environments of the last Ice Age and to foster a revision of global reconstructions of the Ice Age earth, drawing on the progress made in the last ~ 20 years since the completion of the CLIMAP maps.

  1. EPILOG Workshop: “Global Ocean and Land Surface Temperatures during the last Ice Age”
    May 3rd-6th, 1999. Workshop was organised at the HANSE wissenschaftskolleg (HWK) in Delmenhorst

  2. EPILOG Workshop: “Ice Sheets and Sea Level of the Last Glacial Maximum”
    Peter U. Clark, Alan C. Mix, Edouard Bard (convenors).

EPILOG Report 2001
submitted by A. Mix, 26.07.2001

WG6 - Terminal Millenial Synthesis of Decadal-to-Millenial-Scale Climate Records of the last 80 kyr

Chairs: M. Sarnthein and J. P. Kennett. The objectives and goals of this working group are i) to create a common canonical time series of short-term and abrupt climatic events documented in marine sediment records; ii) to tie the ultrahigh-resolution marine climate records to ice core and other varved records of climate change measured on calendar-year time scale; iii) to constrain the temporal and spatial variability of both the oceanic C14-reservoir effect and cosmogenic C14 production to develop C14 as a high-precision tracer in palaeoceanography and to improve chronological resolution in sediment records; iv) to better understand teleconnection processes in global transfer of climatic change; v) to prepare co-operative SCOR-PAGES / IMAGES workshop within one year of inception and to publish a special volume on its results as IGBP product.

A meeting was held involving more than 50 top scientists at the SCOR-IMAGES Workshop in Trins, Austria, February 16-19, 2000. A summary article was published in Eos.

Read the text of this article here.
View Figure 1 (.pdf)
View Figure 2 (.pdf)

Final report of this working group

WG7 - Southern Ocean

Chairs: R. Dunbar and A. Mackensen. The Southern Ocean Working Group focuses on the preparation of several giant coring cruises in the Southern Ocean, starting 2005.

The first workshop was held at the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in Bremerhaven on June 21-23, 2001.
Report of the 2001-meeting (PDF)

A second workshop was held in September 2002 in Barcelona, focussing on the development of a coordinated implementation plan.
Report of the 2002-meeting (PDF)

WG8 - Ice–Ocean Interaction

The Ice-Ocean interaction working group was established in order to bring together researchers from various fields interested in the dynamic interaction between ice/ice sheets and ocean circulation. The justfication for establishing the WG lies in the many unresolved questions regarding triggering and amplification of rapid climate changes during which ice sheets and ocean circulation undergo drastic changes. It was felt that the solution lies in a better interaction between paleoceanographers, petrologists working on provenance studies, sedimentologists, glacial geologists, glaciologists and modellers.

This WG chaired by John Andrews, Boulder, USA and Eystein Jansen, Bergen, Norway was established by Images in 2001.

Report 2001 and Proposal 2002 (PDF).
Report 2002 (Article: EOS,Vol 84, No 20)

WG9 - Holocene Climate Variability

The Holocene WG investigates submillennial climate fluctuations during the Holocene, at both low and high latitudes, regional teleconnections, amplitude of variability and linkage between oceanic and climatic change.

co-chairs: Peter de Menocal (L-DEO, USA) and Francis Grousset (Univ. Bordeaux, France)

HWG Proposal 2001/2002 (PDF)
Activity report 2004 (PDF)

WG10 - Reconstruction of Past Ocean Circulation - PACE (SCOR-WG 123)

This joint IMAGES/SCOR working group will

Assess the existing paleoceanographic methods for reconstructing the history of ocean circulation over the past 120,000 years. Are the existing methods sufficient for a robust reconstruction of past ocean circulation? Are existing chronological tools sufficient to reconstruct distinct ocean circulation states? If not, what developments are necessary?
Assess the available paleoceanographic data for reconstructing the history of ocean circulation over the past 120,000 years.Can robust conclusions on past ocean circulation be drawn from existing data? For what time periods and locations?
Develop recommendations for future approaches to quantitatively assess the hypothesised changes in ocean circulation over the same time scale.
Identify a minimum array of global locations and data types that would help to constrain uncertainties concerning changes in ocean circulation linked to major climate changes, bearing in mind the potential for collecting appropriate geological material as well as the size of the expected circulation signal relative to uncertainties in the methods. Through international co-operation within the IMAGES and ODP, existing cores would be identified and plans for new coring to meet these objectives would be discussed.
This plan will outline a coordinated international project which we will refer to as the Palocean Circulation Experiment (PACE).

Chair: Jean Lynch-Stieglitz (LDEO-Columbia University, USA)
Co-Chair: Catherine Kissel (LSCE, Gif sur Yvette, France)

Homepage of SCOR-WG 123 at the SCOR-Website

A first Workshop is announced to be held from 20-23 March, 2005 at the School of Earth and Athmospheric Sciences, Georgia Tech, Atlanta, Georgia, USA.

WG11 - Links Between Present Oceanic Processes and Paleo-Records

Another SCOR/IMAGES working group arises from the Paleo-JGOFS Task Team (PJTT) with the following objectives:

improve the collaboration between the two core projects
identify regions of specific interest for future research
propagate these issues into the next phase of IGBP II ocean research programs.
The main objective of the proposed working group is to combine new insights gained from the study of modern biogeochemical processes and ecosystem dynamics, with paleoceanographic studies aiming to improve our understanding of past oceanic processes. In turn, accurate interpretation of the sedimentary record extends the temporal baseline of observation, thus allowing to better gauge the impact of anthropogenic disturbances against natural variability. To achieve this unifying vision, the working group will:

Use the new insights gained from contemporary ocean biogeochemical studies to identify or refine our understanding of key oceanic processes and develop or improve proxies for these processes for subsequent use in paleoceanographic studies.
Refine established proxies, provide mechanistic understanding and foster the development of new proxies within integrated multidisciplinary studies in the modern ocean.
Use proxy evidence from the sedimentary records to test hypotheses of the oceanic response to climate change.
Co-chairs: Karin Lochte (IfM, Kiel, Germany), Marie-Alexandrine Sicre (LSCE, Gif sur Yvette, France)

Homepage of SCOR-WG 124 at the SCOR-Website

WG11-LINKS-Homepage

WG12 - PEPD: Past Equatorial Pacific Dynamics

The first meeting of this IMAGES working Group will be held on November 10-12th, 2003 at the Institute of Earth Dynamics, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan.

Organisers (and co-chairs): Luc Beaufort (CEREGE, France) and Min-Te Chen (Keelung, Taiwan)

Report and Cruise Proposal 2004 (PDF)

Standing Groups

DAC: Data Advisory Committee

The Objective of the DAC is to provide advice to IMAGES scientists and to the Data Manager on quality and format for data storage and exchange.

Workshops

IMAGES-sponsored workshops and meetings

ICP-8 (the Eighth International Meeting on Paleoceanography)

was held in Biarritz (France), September 5-10 2004 and organized by the EPOC laboratory (University Bordeaux I), under the sponsorship of French institutions. Both IMAGES and SCOR provided travel grants to students and scientists from developing countries to help underwrite their participation at this meeting.

A short report on this meeting can be read here .
The meeting agenda and the abstract booklet can be viewed here.

The “Holocene Climate Variability” workshop –

organized by the IMAGES Holocene Working Group – was held in Hafslo (Norway), August 28-30, 2003, under the sponsorship of IMAGES, PAGES, NSF and the Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research (Bergen).

The main output of this workshop is a special issue of Quarternary Science Reviews, Volume 23, Issues 20-22, Nov. 2004), gathering fifteen articles focused on the variability of the Holocene climate.

IMAGES P.P.Shirshov Institute of Oceanology RAS WG “Stratigraphy”

Council on the World Ocean Problems, RAS Workshop “Correlation of post-glacial climatic events in the Arctic and Far East Seas”. Moscow, April 17 - 20, 2000.

A short summary report of this meeting can be found here

“Quaternary evolution of the Benguela coastal upwelling system: its responses to local and global climate changes”

was held near Bordeaux, April 19-21, 2000, under the sponsorship of IMAGES (PAGES-IGBP), the University of Bordeaux I, and the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS).

The meeting agenda can be read here. A short report on this meeting can be read here. The abstract booklet can be viewed here.

EPILOG: Global Ice Sheets and Sea Level During the Last Glacial Maximum

IMAGES is co-sponsoring, with IGBP/PAGES, INQUA, and NSF, the second in a series of EPILOG workshops, on “Global Ice Sheets and Sea Level During the Last Glacial Maximum”. The workshop was held between October 1-5, 2000.

Click here for a short report of the meeting

TRINS:Climate-Variations over the last 80 ka on Decadal-to-Millennial Time-Scales

Creating a joint global time scale of decadal-to-millennial-scale climate oscillations was discussed by more than 50 top scientists at the SCOR-IMAGES Workshop in Trins, Austria, February 16-19, 2000.

Click here for an EOS-publication of the meeting

Past Cruises

Nine international IMAGES coring cruises were completed between 1995 and 2002
on the R/V Marion Dufresne, which is operated by the IFRTP.
Below the maps you find information about all past cruises as well as
maps and reports for download.

Klick on a label in the maps in order to jump directly to the related cruise.

  1. North Atlantik, Carribean, North American Margin
    Three cruises were completed in the North Atlantic in 1995,1999, and 2003.
    In 2002, IMAGES investigated the eastern north Pacific margin and the Carribean Waters.

Nordatlantik

  1. Pacific, Indian Ocean, Southern Ocean, South African Margin
    In 1997, 1998 and 2001 IMAGES cruises operated in the Indonesian Waters and South China Sea.
    In 2001 and 2002, the North Pacific was visited for coring operations. A cruise in 1996 took cores
    along the African Margin and in 2000 some cores were taken in the northern Indian Ocean.
    In 2003, IMAGES went to the Southern Ocean (Terre Adelie) and the Great Australian Bight.

Pacific, etc

  1. Information, Maps and Reports of IMAGES cruises

IMAGES XI, 2003 “PICASSO”
Carribean/North Atlantic : Port-of-Spain—Fortalezza—Miami—Baltimore—Brest

Chief Scientist: Carlo Laj

Cruise Report available at the IMAGES office as Book or CD

PICASSO Maps

May/June 20003
    

Leg 1: Map (PDF-Format)

Leg 2: Map and Core Positions (PDF-Format)

IMAGES X, 2003 “CADO/AUSCAN”
Southern Ocean/Great Australian Bight: Freemantle—Hobart—Terre Adelie(Antarctica)—Hobart—Freemantle

Chief Scientists: Elisabeth Michel, Peter Hill

Cruise Report in Prep

CADO

CADO (Coring Adelie Diatom oozes) 21.01.2003—17.02.2003
    

incl. oceanographic program OIZO

Website (CAP-Sciences) about the cruise (French language)

Map (PDF-Format)

Draft Cruise Report (PDF-document will be available here mid-July 2003)

AUSCAN
    

AUSCAN (Scanning Australian Canyons) 18.02.2003—05.03.2003
incl. program SOCOZA

Website (National Oceans Office Australia) about the cruise (English language)

Map (PDF-Format)

IMAGES IX, 2002 “PAGE”

Carribean Waters. Cancun—Tampa—Belem

Chief Scientists: Laurent Labeyrie, Viviane Bout-Roumazeilles

Cruise Report in Print

Reports from the cruise

IMAGES VIII, 2002 “MONA”

West-American Margin: Vancouver—San Diego—Panama—(Cancun)

Chief Scientist: Luc Beaufort, CEREGE, Aix-en-Provence

Cruise Report available at the IMAGES Office

Cruise Report in PDF-Format (150 MB)

Diary of the cruise

MONA MAP, High-Resolution PDF-File (1.5 MB)

Click on the map for a larger version, or open the high-resolution PDF-file (1.5 MB) and save it to your harddisk

IMAGES VII, 2001 “WEPAMA”

Indonesian Waters, South-China Sea, Sea of Ochotsk, Emperor Sea Mounts

Chief Scientists: Franck Bassinot, Agnes Baltzer

Cruise Report out of stock. The core documentation of Leg 1 and Leg 2 is available as PDF-Document:

Summary of the cruise
WEPAMA MAP, High-Resolution PDF-File (1.5 MB)

Core Documentation of Leg 1 in PDF-Format (20 MB)
Core Documentation of Leg 2 in PDF-Format (12 MB)

Click on the map for a larger version, or open the high-resolution PDF-file (1.5 MB) and save it to your harddisk

IMAGES VI, 2000

Colombo, Sri Lanka, Oman

Chief Scientists: Hartmut Schulz
Shipboard report not yet available

IMAGES V, 1999

Chief scientists: Elisabeth Michel, Rainer Zahn, Claude Hillaire-Marcel, Jean Louis Turon, Laurent Labeyrie, Eystein Jansen, Anne Jennings, and Nicolas Thouveny .

Short Summary of the cruise

Introductionary chapter of the cruise report as PDF-document

Printed Shipboard Report avqailable from IPEV and the IMAGES Office

Click on the map for a larger version

IMAGES IV, 1998

Indonesian Archipelago, western Pacific and East China Sea.

Chief scientists: Franck Bassinot, François Guichard and Luc Beaufort
Shipboard report not yet available

IMAGES III, 1997

IPHIS I&II: South of Australia and south-north transect from New Zealand to China Sea.

Chief scientists: Elisabeth Michel, J. L. Turon, Luc Beaufort
Shipboard report not yet available

IMAGES II, 1996

NAUSICAA: Namibia Angola upwelling system and Indian/Atlantic connection.

Chief scientist: Philippe Bertrand
Shipboard report available.

IMAGES I, 1995

MD 101; North Atlantic Ocean and Norwegian sea.

Chief scientists: Y. Balut, F. Bassinot, Y. Lancelot, L. Labeyrie, and J. L. Turon
Shipboard report available - contact F. Bassinot

Cruise Schedule

The acquisition of long sediment cores in high sedimentation rate areas is a major task of the IMAGES program.
IMAGES co-ordinates the preparation of cruises on board the French vessel Marion Dufresne, which has unique facilities for giant coring cruises.

Current plans for IMAGES cruises on Marion Dufresne are:

Year Planned Cruises
2003: 22 April–30 June, Cape Town–Cariaco Basin–Caribbean–East Coast US and Canada–Brest:
2003: 19 September–30 October, Gulf of Bengal Update 27.08.2003: This cruise has been cancelled
2004/05: Southern Ocean: A series of southern ocean cruises is planned by the Southern Ocean Working Group

DATA MANAGEMENT

The goals of IMAGES demand that collected data are archived and data exchange is made possible

Ultimately, results should be freely accessible for the entire scientific community.

The database program is managed in close collaboration with the World Data Center for palaeoclimatology in Boulder (USA) and the World Data Center “WDC-Mare” with its front end PANGAEA (located at the Alfred Wegener Institute, Bremerhaven, Germany)

DATA POLICY

Cruise participants and related scientists (e.g. shore-based scientists active in the planning of specific cruises) will have a two-year period of exclusive access to the samples and data collected in IMAGES operations. The data will be made available to the whole scientific community at the end of that two-year period.

Check the core database for available data of specific cores. Click the core-id in order to start a direct retrieval at PANGAEA. You are then presented the list of datasets, available for this core.

ACCESS TO CORE SEDIMENTS

When you want to work on a specific core check the Activity Database for the person / institution working on the core, contact those people, and send request for samples.

News 2004/2005

IMAGES-related News and Announcements

IMAGES attends IODP-Conference
“Paleoclimate Change: High Latitudes & Ocean Circulation”

2nd-3rd June, 2005, at The Geologioical Society of London, Burlington House, UK
Organisers: Paul Wilson (Southampton Oceanography Centre), Ian Hall (Cardiff), Mike Bickle (Cambridge) and Juergen Thurow (UCL)

The aim of the meeting is to bring together the UK community in the broad field of Palaeoceanography & Palaeoclimate Change to discuss exciting new results emerging from recent initiatives (eg, IODP drilling in the Arctic, IMAGES, RAPID) aimed at improving our understanding of extreme and rapid changes in Earth’s past climate, with special emphasis on the high latitudes and ocean circulation.

This two-day meeting will take the same form as the 2001 William Smith Meeting of the Geological Society and consist of a series of invited 30 min lectures from senior overseas and UK scientists.

For the list of speakers, visit:

Website of the meeting

Small poster in jpeg format

International Symposium SEALAIX’06
“Sea level changes : Records, processes and modeling”

25-29 September 2006, GIENS (FRANCE)
Convenors : G. CAMOIN, A. DROXLER, C. FULTHORPE & K. MILLER

Official website of the workshop

2nd PAGES Open-Science Meeting, 2005

The 1st PAGES (Past Global Changes) Open Science Meeting (OSM) was held in London in 1998. PAGES now announces its 2nd OSM, to be held in Beijing, China from 10-12 August 2005. The title is

“Paleoclimate, Environmental Sustainability and Our Future”
The meeting will focus on understanding past processes and natural variability–within the topics of climate, environmental change and human impact–in order to develop predictive models of the future.

By locating the 2nd OSM in China, PAGES hopes to increase the visibility of paleoenvironmental research in Asia and provide opportunities for international collaboration. By linking paleoresearch, environmental history and modeling, the meeting also hopes to encourage interdisciplinary science.

The OSM will consist of plenary lectures and poster sessions. The deadline for poster abstract submission is 31 March 2005. For more information about the meeting, including the preliminary program and registration details, please go to www.pages2005.org. We hope to see many of you there.

PAGES OSM is being held alongside the 9th IAMAS Scientific Assembly (2-11 August 2005). The theme of their meeting is “The Fascinating Atmosphere: Changeable and Changing”. Their scientific program will cover all areas of meteorology and atmospheric sciences.

For more information, please visit the PAGES OSM2005 Website.

IMAGES Meetings 2004/2005
SciCom Meeting 2005
The IMAGES SCICOM meeting 2005 will be set up in Beijing, P.R. China in conjunction
with the PAGES meeting 2005.

Details will be given here upon availability

ExCom Meeting 2004
The IMAGES EXCOM meeting 2004will take place prior to the AGU meeting,
from December 11—12, 2004 at the CROWNE PLAZA HOTEL, San Francisco, USA.

Preliminary agenda of the meeting (PDF-File)

ICP- 8 Afterglow

ICP-8 (the Eighth International Meeting on Paleoceanography) was held in Biarritz (France), September 5-10 2004 and organized by the EPOC laboratory (University Bordeaux I), under the sponsorship of French institutions. Both IMAGES and SCOR provided travel grants to students and scientists from developing countries to help underwrite their participation at this meeting.

A short report on this meeting in PDF-format can be accessed here.

The meeting agenda and the abstract booklet can be viewed at the ICP-8 Website.

6th Framework of the European Commission–
New Marie Curie Teaching Network
Within the 6th framework of the European Commission a consortium of researchers in the field of Paleo-Climate studies announces the new Marie Curie teaching network:

PROPER
Proxies used in Paleoclimatology: Education and Research

Within PROPER a series of five courses will be organized covering the most relevant aspects related to Paleo-Climate research from the basics to the latest developments. The courses will be hosted at different locations throughout Europe,

PROPER invites applications for course 2:

Preservation potential of climate signals and ultra high-resolution climate archives

7—13, November, 2004

Hosted by the Institute of Environmental Science and Technology (ICTA-UAB),
co-host: Institute of Earth Sciences (ICTJA-CSIC)

Application deadline: 01.08.2004

Click here to display the sheet with more infos and admission details

Archive:

Announcement of the first PROPER-course (Amsterdam/Bremen, June 2004)

SciCom Meeting 2004

The IMAGES SCICOM meeting was held at August 4—5, 2004
at the Hotel Louisianne, Rue Guy Petit, 64200 Biarritz.

Protocol of the meeting (PDF-File)

8th International Conference on Paleoceanography (ICP-8), 2004
Travel Grants offered by IMAGES and ICPVIII

The 8th International Conference on Paleoceanography (ICP-8) will be held
from September 5 to 10, 2004 in Biarritz, France.

This conference will host around 700 scientists from all around the world and will embed all aspects of Paleoceanography. The ICP-8 will offer the best opportunity to present and discuss your results to a broad audience from the paleoceanography and paleoclimatology communities.

The official ICP-8 Website

IMAGES and ICP VIII offer funding for scientists from developing countries and /or active young scientists (PhD students and young - 1 to 2 years - post-doctoral fellows). This funding will be made available by ICP VIII and IMAGES upon request. Grants will mostly cover part of the travelling cost.

Applications must be e-mailed to the IMAGES Executive Office through the Assistant Director Nicolas Dittert (ndittert@wdc-mare.org) no later than 15 April, 2004.

They should consist of :

A short CV with a brief resume of work in which the applicant is currently engaged.
A copy of the submitted abstract.
An estimate of the least expensive return fare between the place of work and Biarritz (in Euros).
The applicants will be notified of the result of the selection
by e-mail in early May, 2004.

IMAGES Calendar

Date (DD.MM.YY) Event Location More Information
2005
20.—23.03.2005 SCOR/IMAGES WG 123:
Workshop on Past Ocean Circulation Atlanta,Georgia USA More Information
2004
13.—17.12.2004 AGU Fall Meeting San Francisco, USA More Information
11.—12.12.2004 “Open” IMAGES EXCOM Meeting San Francisco, USA Agenda
Contact:
Ralf Schneider
07.—13.11.2004
6th Framework
of the European Commission:
Marie Curie Teaching Network
PROPERProxies in Paleoclimatology: Education and Research
Course: Preservation potential of climate signals and ultra high-resolution climate archives

Barcelona, Spain

More Information

Contact:
Simon Jung

06.—10.09.2004 ICP VIII
International Conference on Paleoceanography Biarritz, France
More Information
Travel Grants
Contact:
Nicolas Dittert

04—05.09.2004 IMAGES SCICOM
Meeting Biarritz, France Contact:
Ralf Schneider
03.—12.06.2004
6th Framework
of the European Commission:

Marie Curie Teaching Network
PROPER
Proxies in Paleoclimatology: Education and Research

Amsterdam,
The Netherlands

Bremen, Germany

More Information

Contact:
Nicolas Dittert

23.—29.05.2004
16th Rencontres de Blois
“Challenges in the Climate Science”

Chateau de Blois
Blois, France
More Information

Contact:
Ludwik Celnikier

17.03.2004 IMAGES AdHoc Meeting Bremen, Germany More Information
2003
07.12.—12.12.2003 AGU Fall Meeting San Francisco, USA
06.12.—07.12.2003 IMAGES SCICOM
Meeting San Francisco, USA
Contact:
Michael Sarnthein

10.11.—12.11.2003 PEPD
Working Group Meeting Taipei, Taiwan More Information
06.04.—11.04.2003 EGS-AGU-EUG Joint Assembly Nice, France More Information
05.04.—06.04.2003
(morning)
IMAGES “Open” EXCOM Meeting Citadelle de Villefranche-Sur-Mer, France Contact:
Michael Sarnthein

Related Links

Parent Organizations

Scientific Committee on Oceanic Research (SCOR)
IGBP - Past Global Changes (PAGES)

European Consortium for Ocean Research Drilling

European Consortium for Ocean Research Drilling
Ocean Drilling Program

Ocean Drilling Program (ODP - TAMU, College Station, Tx)
Ocean Drilling Program plus Future Drilling (Post 2003)
and read about the COMPLEX (Conference on Multiple Platform Exploration) meeting here
Join Oceanographic Instutions (JOI)

Related interesting WWW Homepages

National Geophys. Data Center (NGDC - Boulder, Co)
WDC for marine Geology and Geophysics (NGDC - Boulder, Co)
NGDC Index to Marine & Lacustrine Geological Samples
PANGAEA
British Oceanographic Data Centre - link for BOFS, OMEX, EDMED, WOCE information
The British Antarctic Survey (BAS) Metadata Management System (MDMS).The BAS MDMS is maintained by the Antarctic Environmental Data Centre (AEDC), the designated repository of the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) for UK Antarctic data.
Geodesy and Geomatics Engineering (Univ. New Brunswick)
Ocean Mapping Group (Univ. New Brunswick)
American Geophysical Union (AGU)
Antarctic Ice Margin Evolution (ANTIME)
The Antarctic Offshore Stratigraphy Project (ANTOSTRAT)
Research Center in Isotope Geochemistry and Geochronologie (GEOTOP)
Institut Français pour la Recherche et la Technologie Polaires (IFRTP)

Sites which mention IMAGES

The PANIS project: PAlaeoenvironments on the North Icelandic Shelf
The Geomound Project: Geomound, The Internal MoundFactory

Members of IMAGES

Norway: University of Bergen - http://www.geol.uib.no
The Netherlands; Dutch IMAGES - http://www.geo.vu.nl/~odp/
Portugal: IGM - http://www.igm.pt/
United Kingdom: SOC - http://www.soc.soton.ac.uk/
Germany: Bremen - http://www.palmod.uni-bremen.de/FB5/fb5_engl.html
Kiel - http://www.gpi.uni-kiel.de/
GEOMAR - http://www.geomar.de/
AWI - http://www.awi-bremerhaven.de/
USA: Oregon State University - http://www.oce.orst.edu/
CANADA: University of Quebec and Montreal - http://www.unites.uqam.ca/geotop/
If you wish your site to be included, please mail the URL to Stefan Rothe, IMAGES Data Manager