Between 19 and 21 September 2019 the Interridge Working Group on Seamounts and Islands associated with Mid-Ocean Ridges held its inaugural workshop in the Instituto Hidrográfico in Lisbon (Portugal). During the three days of the workshop the international participants discussed the main scientific and logistic challenges related to research of seamounts and islands. They reshaped the definition of the working group so that it will act as an umbrella for fundamental and applied research on large edifices that formed in the proximity of Mid-Ocean Ridges. The main research questions to be addressed deal with the cycling of energy and materials in these enigmatic environments and the interaction between processes related to solid Earth and those in the hydrosphere, biosphere and atmosphere. The participants concluded on the final day of the workshop that the successful future of the working group lies in a continuation of the scientific networking. The possibilities of a larger networking proposal will be evaluated in the near future in a subsequent workshop to be held in 2020.
