2001

Images-Portugal

Portuguese Status

The Portuguese participation in IMAGES has been funded exclusively by the Instituto Geológico e Mineiro (IGM) through the program "Programa Nacional de Investigação Geológica dos Oceanos e da Faixa Costeira (PRONIGO)". Aiming to convert the IGM-Institution sole Portuguese participation in a broad national interest, F. Abrantes has promoted a meeting with Portuguese researchers developing projects with objectives that can be integrated in the general objectives of Images on September 10th. The young researchers present showed interest in joining the program and a proposal to be presented at the Institute for International Scientific and Technological Cooperation (ICCTI) is in preparation.

Portuguese Activities

• Work Performed on IMAGES Cores:
  
  
  • IMAGES I - Portuguese Margin With the objective of reconstructing, at high resolution, the history of the ocean/climate interactions over the last glacial/interglacial cycles off Portugal, with particular emphasis to the rapid and high amplitude changes, cores MD95-2039 and MD95-2041 have been resampled. Foraminifer analysis (quantification, assemblages and dating), correlation to ice records, SST and salinity as well as productivity reconstructions are planned as part of Lucia de Abreu postdoc project.
    
    
  • IMAGES II - SW Africa High resolution diatom quantification of core MD96-2086 (25° 48' S, 12° 7' E) from the Luderitz transect is complete. Diatom identification and assemblages determinations are being done by Sandra Vaqueiro as part of her PhD thesis.
    
    
  • IMAGES V - Portuguese Margin There are two cores being studied, MD99-2339, collected in the Cadiz Gulf, and core MD99-2333 recovered off the Tagus Estuary. High-resolution grain size analysis of the sortable-silt fraction (<63µm) of both total and decarbonated samples is in progress for both cores. CaCO3, Corg, Foraminifer, Diatom and isotopic analysis are also being preformed. The work on the Cadiz Gulf cores is financed by the "MOWFADRI" project; while core 33 and the two cores recovered during the Discovery 249 cruise are being studied as part of the HOLSMEER project.
    
    
• Other Activities
  
  
  • TTR 11 - Participation in two legs of the cruise aboard Prof. Logachev. The main objective of leg 1 was to investigate the morphology, sedimentation, tectonics and fluid escape structures - Mud Volcanoes, discovered last year in the southern Iberian margin and Gulf of Cadiz. The principal purpose of leg 2 was the study of the sedimentological, geochemical and oceanographic processes related with ferromanganese deposits and phosphorites, occurring on the Ampère, Lion and Seine seamounts, located between the Portuguese coast and Madeira Island.
    
    
  • Cadisar - This campaign took place aboard the oceanographic ship Suroit and had as its main objective a detailed analyse of the deposits generated by contour currents in order to evaluate paleocirculation variability from the Neogene to Present time.
    
    
  • Contribution of metadata on cores and sediment samples to the European marine sediment archive EU-SEASED (European projects EUMARSIN and EUROCORE).

Lisboa, September 28,2001
Fatima Abrantes