Science

N. Le Bris 31.05.2014

The  Working Group has organized its third meeting in Vienna, Austria, in the context of the European Geosciences Union General Assembly 2014. The WG meeting was held  on April 28th, with the primary aim of discussing the review papers that are proposed as deliverables in the WG terms of references.

The InterRidge Long-Range Exploration Working Group (LREWG) made enormous headway in scoping both the scientific drivers for and the technological requirements of long-range exploration of the spreading axes. The resulting report (see http://www.interridge.org/files/interridge/LREWG_Report_Final_web_0.pdf) highlighted several regions of the world´s oceans which, for many ridge-related scientific disciplines, it would be important to explore thoroughly and on a large scale.

Deep-sea Mining
The pilot Solwara 1 project could start operations in 2012. The vent biology community is closely watching this world-first and worries about the consequences. Helen Rosenbaum wrote a very nice and comprehensive report on the subject, including economics and biology. This report can be downloaded from http://stoplynas.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/Out-Of-Our-Depth.pdf. Another article more generally about mining the ocean floor in the Pacific can be aceessed at: http://www.deepseaminingoutofourdepth.org/

The Seafloor Mineralization Working Group was renewed for a second term at the last InterRidge Steering Committee meeting in San Francisco in December 2011. Interest in the mineralisation resources at midocean ridges has continued unabated with the price of metals such as copper, gold and silver near historic highs and nations beginning to look at options for exploration of seafloor areas for polymetallic sulfide resources in “the area” under the regulations of the International Seabed Authority (ISA).

The InterRidge Oceanic Detachments WG was put in place in January 2012, following the results and recommendations of the 2010 AGU Chapman Conference on “Detachments in the Oceanic Lithosphere”: (ht

Hangzhou meeting
The second WG group meeting was held in Hangzhou, China on 10-11 October 2011. It was hosted by the 2nd Institute of Oceanography. Xiqiu Han, also a member of the WG, has been a greatly appreciated local organiser. The visit included additional exchanges with colleagues and seminars for students for several meeting attendees. The group of attendees involved L. Bharathi (India), T. Gamo (Japan), C. German (US), G. W. Luther (US), X. Han (China), N. Le Bris (France), L. Legendre (France), S. Sander (NZ) and S. Sievert (US).

• An initial working group planning meeting is scheduled during the International Geological Congress (IGC) Meeting in Brisbane (6-10 August, 2012)
 Members are involved in convening themes/symposia at the IGC 2012:
o Theme: Mineral Deposits and Ore Forming Processes (Large, de Ronde)
o Symposium: Volcanic and basin-hosted ores (Fe, Zn-Pb, Cu, U) (Gemmell, de Ronde, Bull, Leach) 
o Symposium: Marine minerals in Oceania (Cronan, de Ronde, Exon)

An initial workshop was convened in Toulouse in September 2011. Click here to read the report. 

Although Circum-Antarctic Ridges (CAR) represent over one third of the global mid- ocean ridge system, they remain the least known sections of mid-ocean ridges, mostly because of their location in high latitudes and areas of rough seas. However, Circum-Antarctic Ridges are unique by their shallow water depths, ultra-slow or intermediate spreading rates, and complicated series of transform offsets compared to low-latitude ridges.

2010 AGU Chapman Conference on Detachments in Oceanic Lithosphere: http://www.ipgp.fr/rech/lgm/je/Chapman2010

G-Cubed Theme on Oceanic Detachment Faults: http://www.agu.org/journals/gc/theme.shtml?collectionCode=OCDFAULT1&jour...