News

This document has been prepared over the last year and is now available at: http://www.interridge.org/files/interridge/Third_Decadal_Plan_website_0.pdf. If you would like a hard copy (within the IR News 2012), please write in to the IR Office (coordinator@interridge.org).

A new InterRidge Liaison Panel for the formation of guidelines concerning exploration and exploitation of vents has been formed. It will liaise with mining interests and policy makers to engage all interested in the very topical issue of SMS deposits at hydrothermal vents.

Six InterRidge-funded students are currently participating on cruises in the Pacific and Atlantic, courtesy of InterRidge's cruise bursary scheme.

Berta Biescas-Gorriz (Dalhousie University), Guillermo Bornstein and Jhon Fredy Mojica-Moncada (both at CSIC, Barcelona) are participating in Suzanne Carbotte's cruise to the Juan de Fuca plate as part of a complex program involving both the R/V Langseth and the R/V Oceanus. Details at: http://blogs.ei.columbia.edu/2012/06/19/imaging-the-cascadia-subduction-...

In 2011 InterRidge initiated a discussion online and at a meeting attached to AGU, to identify the major science questions it was felt InterRidge should address in the next decade. A draft of the Third Decadal Plan 2014-23 is now available for consultation by the InterRidge community.

Ofioliti is an independent international journal with the main goal of diffusing the knowledge on ophiolites and modern oceanic lithosphere. In 35 years of activity, Ofioliti published high-quality original papers dealing with geodynamics, petrology, geochemistry, stratigraphy, tectonics, biostratigraphy and palaeogeography. From the June 2011 issue, the Ofioliti journal is presenting to the international scientific community an important change in its editorial scope.

Two highly topical and relevant reports have recently been published:

The Dinard Report (Environmental Management of Deep-Sea Chemosynthetic Ecosystems: Justification of and Considerations for a Spatially-Based Approach)

"Illuminating Earth's Past, Present and Future" - IODP's science plan for the next decade of ocean drilling. 

During January to February 2011, the 2nd Leg of the COMRA’s 22 Cruise found three hydrothermal fields on 13-14°S Mid-Atlantic Ridge (MAR). They were named temporarily as Rainbow Bay North, Valentine Valley and Tai Chi, respectively. 

It is with great regret that we announce that Dr. Kensaku Tamaki, Professor at Tokyo University and former InterRidge Chair, passed away suddenly on April 6 (Japan Time) at the age of 62, during his stay in New York.

The InterRidge Family extends its deepest concerns and sincerest sympathies to our Japanese friends and colleagues at this time of suffering. While as geoscientists we are all too familiar with the processes that cause earthquakes, we can only share the sadness of the Japanese people in their time of need. Such tragic events must only strengthen our resolve to understand, predict and protect against them, and yet, we are shown again and again how fragile our efforts are when faced with the destructive power of earthquakes and tsunamis and how limited is our knowledge.

There is a berth available on the Southern Surveyor, going out to the Perth Abyssal Plain, Western Australia, 1-20 November 2011. Jo Whittaker, the IR Australian National Correspondent, would be pleased to receive applications. For more information, including details of this cruise, and an application form, visit: http://www.interridge.org/cruisebursary

The InterRidge Office is pleased to announce the first recipient of the Cruise Travel Bursary scheme. She is Melis Cevatoglu, who is studying at the Kandilli Observatory and Earthquake Research Institute, University of Bogaxici, Istanbul, Turkey. She will be working with Julie Perrot, on the HYDROBS-MOMAR2 cruise, on board R/V Le Suroit.

Scientists from the MARUM Center for Marine Environmental Sciences and the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology in Bremen on board the German research vessel Meteor have discovered a new hydrothermal vent 500 kilometres south-west of the Azores. The vent with chimneys as high as one meter and fluids with temperatures up to 300oC was found at 1000m water depth in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. The discovery of the new deep-sea vent is remarkable because the area in which it was found has been intensively studied during previous research cruises.

The InterRidge News 2010 will be published next month. It will be available as hard copy and in electronic form. If you would like to be sent a hard copy, please go to your account via http://www.interridge.org and under Edit/Other Info, check the box "Receive  IR Newsletter as Hardcopy".