Status
Version: 01.09.2003
1. IMAGES PURPOSE AND SCIENTIFIC OBJECTIVES
1.1. IMAGES purpose
1.2. Scientific objectives2.1. Major tasks of the program
2.2. Facilities and drilling requirement - ODP-IMAGES relationships3.1. Site survey and coring
3.2. Paleo-environmental proxies
3.3. Chronology and stratigraphy4.1. 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 CNRS5.1. Scientific Committee
5.2. Executive Committee
5.3. Secretariat
5.4. Finance committee
1. 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:
2.1. Major tasks of the program
IMAGES will act under the guidance of its scientific and executive committees:
These actions will require :
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.
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:
* micropaleontological
transfer functions and biomarkers provide estimates of past sea surface temperature.
It seems to be possible to reconstruct sea surface salinity from the planktonic
foraminifera 18O/16O ratio by correcting the temperature dependency of the isotopic
fractionation, with sea surface temperature estimated at the same locations.
This should allow the construction of past surface density fields.
* 13C/12C and Cd/Ca ratio in foraminifera shells, flux of biogenic skeletons
and organic carbon, d13C and d15N of organic matter, and the distribution of
carbonate in the sediments, are all important proxies for the reconstruction
of the carbon cycle.
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.
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 :
- the name of the nominee
- scientific qualifications in a curriculum vita
- evidence that the nominee adequately represents the scientific interests within
their nation, for ex by endorsement of the nation's SCOR and or IGBP committee
or a relevant national scientific committee.
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.
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:
- interaction with the paleoclimatic and paleoceanographic communities within
the PAGES framework;
- the use of models for data assimilation and interpretation;
- the efficient sharing of analytical facilities,
- intercalibration of the analytical techniques which are necessary to achieve
IMAGE objectives. It sets standards for coring and sample retrieval, routine
data acquisition by non-destructive methods during coring expeditions, core
archival, curation, sample and data sharing. It ensures access to core materials.
Decisions made by this committee will be carried on by the Executive Committee.
5.1.2 Members
5.1.2.1 - Voting members
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
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.
6. 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 :
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.