Session 8.2 and 8.3 join together to "Ocean margins and marine resources"

Convenors: Gerhard Bohrmann, Peter Herzig, Gerold Wefer
Session language: Englisch

Topic of the former 8.2: Marine Resources
The oceans cover 70 percent of Earth's surface, and host a vast variety of geological processes responsible for the formation and concentration of non-living mineral resources. Hence, oceans contain vast quantities of materials that presently serve as major resources for humans. Such resources are oil and gas, gas hydrates, manganese nodules, and various minerals precipitates like metal-rich deposits from hydrothermal systems among others. Today, the direct extraction of raw material is very limited although such resources are of great scientific interest and are potentially valuable in future times.

The session on marine resources aspires to cover all aspects of science related to the formation, distribution of resources, as well as their economic background.

Topic of the former 8.3: Ocean Margin Systems
Ocean margins are the transitional zones between the oceans and continents where most of the sediments which arrive from the land are deposited. The ocean margins are dynamic systems in which many processes shape the environment. In recent years, commercial activity has expanded farther out into the oceans as the margins gain increasing attention as potentially valuable assets for hydrocarbon extraction and industrial fisheries. Margins have great commercial potential, but they can also bear high potential hazards, for example, in the form of earthquakes and possible tsunamis triggered by slope and seismic instability, which can have a direct impact on the densely populated coastal regions. The goal of this session is to present and discuss new scientific results in the fields if sedimentation processes, hazard records, slope stability, dewatering of margin sediments, etc.