IMOVE

Working Group on Integrating Multidisciplinary Observations in Vent Environments (IMOVE)

WG objectives and timeliness – Our proposed working group (WG) will contribute to the InterRidge research community by fostering and coordinating the integration of hydrothermal data from vent fields where observatory-style data have been acquired. A large set of temporal and spatially-variable multi-disciplinary data have been collected from deep-sea vent fields at considerable cost to the international community, but to this point the datasets have mostly been analyzed in a piecemeal fashion. Systematic efforts to integrate data from different disciplines and synthesize these products into quantitative, cross-disciplinary models relevant to hydrothermal processes on the global MOR system have the potential to produce transformative scientific results, and are clearly needed at this point in time. The proposed WG will provide an international framework for this effort, and the relatively modest funding required will effectively leverage all of the previous funding allocated (logistical and scientific) to gather and study this data by individual countries and organizations. We propose 1) to develop a collaborative platform to access the existing data and metadata in standardized formats, along with the available relevant analytical and modeling tools and 2) to hold two IMOVE workshops in order to synthesize data products, facilitate technology transfers and address the challenge of integrating observatory-style data at the global-scale.

Proponents board: Norway: Thibaut Barreyre (University of Bergen) – France: Marjolaine Matabos and Erwan Roussel (IFREMER), and Jean-Arthur Olive (Ecole Normale Supérieure / CNRS) – Germany: Christine Andersen (GFZ) – Portugal: Ana Colaço (University of Azores) – USA: Christian Baillard and Deborah Kelley (University of Washington), Jill McDermott (Lehigh University), and Robert Sohn (WHOI) – Canada: Steve Mihály (Ocean Networks Canada).

WG supportive partners: European Multidisciplinary Seafloor and water column Observatory (EMSO), Ocean Networks Canada (ONC), Ocean Observatories Initiative (OOI), Deep-Ocean Stewardship Initiative (DOSI), and Deep Ocean Observing Strategy (DOOS).