SLATE goes EGU - Ready... set... TYPE!

ESR 2, ESR 4, ESR 5, ESR 6, ESR 9, ESR 10 | @ Sharing Geoscience Online (4-8 May 2020)

Everyone working in academic geoscience, especially in Europe, has the EGU week highlighted in their calendar. Even if not everyone has the luxury to travel to Vienna each year, we all have at least one colleague who is planning to present new work, new results, or new ideas at EGU. When the abstract submission deadline approaches we all feel involved, either directly or indirectly.

When we received the reminder about the upcoming deadline for session proposals in July 2019, it felt quite natural to try to organize a session to celebrate the last EGU of the SLATE project. No session focused specifically on submarine mass movements during EGU 2019, and the SLATE ESRs were scattered all over different sessions. For our last year, we wanted to organize something that could put all the SLATE ESRs and the submarine mass movements community together to present their work. We gathered five SLATE ESRs who were willing to contribute actively to the session’s organization, and with this motivation in mind, we started working on it.

First thing: you have to make sure that nobody else is organizing the same session. In our case, this meant getting in touch with the S4SLIDE community, which gathers many other researchers working on the topic of submarine mass movements. It took only one email to Lorena Moscardelli, the S4SLIDE chair, to get her full support for the initiative, including five travel grants for early career scientists to attend our session. We could not have had a better or more motivating start.

Everything from there on felt quite spontaneous: shape the session in a way that everyone working in the field could be involved, find a catchy session name, write the proposal, submit it. The session got accepted. We promoted it on our Twitter page (@itnSLATE ), making sure to be annoying enough that everyone working on submarine landslides knew about it. Eventually we received enough abstracts to have an oral and a poster session. Session time: late afternoon on Friday... Not ideal. Some hard negotiation with other conveners and the organizers later, the new session time: Monday afternoon. We could not have asked for a better outcome.

Then, the unexpected happened. Since everyone realized the COVID-19 pandemic was a serious threat, it was clear that it would somehow affect the conference week in Vienna. This bad feeling was confirmed by the end of March: “No EGU General Assembly in 2020, see you in 2021. BUT…we will try something different. This year, the EGU will be an online event, free and open to everyone”.

Honestly, the initial expectations were not so high, but as new details about the online conference were revealed, the enthusiasm started to increase. By mid April, it was clear that we were going to be pioneers of something that could represent a big innovation not only for EGU, but for the entire geoscience community: a virtual conference where thousands of people could talk about science. A drastic reduction in carbon emissions and no more worring about travel budgets. A potential opportunity to reach a larger number of scientists, and a chance to share our presentations beyond the geo-nerds who attend EGU in-person. In other words, there was potential for a scientific communication and outreach revolution.

We needed to make sure that the authors in our session were as motivated as we were. We got in touch with them and explained the importance of being part of such an exciting experiment. In the end, 12 out of the 20 original presenters uploaded their presentation materials ("displays"), and discussed their research on a live chat with more than 120 attendees. The level of engagement was unexpected: a two hour long active discussion, a multitude of specific and open questions, debates. Everyone could notice a considerably more dynamic environment than a regular oral session.

There is no doubt that this forced EGU online edition has been an eye-opener and a potential game-changer for future conferences. The benefits of such a format are obvious, as are the limitations and aspects which could be substantially improved given more organization time. The pros are an answer to years of discussion on how to make this conference more open, international and sustainable. In the last few years we have all seen a multitude of geoscientists travelling the whole continent by train, posting their adventures during their journey on social media. The 2020 edition showed that it is possible, and perhaps more realistic than previously thought, to attend the conference from home. Can you motivate people who are not geoscientists to travel to Vienna, pay for their participation, just to follow the few sessions which are understandable to a non-expert audience? Difficult. However, if you can access science in the comfort of your home, more ordinary people can and will tune in, and scientists will find a wider audience to discuss their discoveries with.

There were also limitations. The most obvious drawback is the lack of in-person interaction. As many of us experience during a regular EGU, there is no better networking than walking around posters, holding a beer and having informal conversations. As this is our natural way to act. Additionally, as everyone can attend from home, the time zones become more problematic and might exclude scientists from sessions they wish to attend. Finally, it requires stable internet access that not everyone has access to.

What if future editions allow authors to present through sharing screens online and explaining their research by talking, instead of writing? How about answering questions by voice, as we have seen in many Instagram or YouTube videos during this quarantine period? What if there was the possibility to create private chat or video-call rooms, where a private interaction between people is possible? Considering the huge online traffic of the online event, this was clearly not possible to set up in little more than a month. Nevertheless, does it sound so unrealistic to do in a one-year timeframe? Finally: is it sustainable to set up such a virtual event free of charge or at a very accessible cost?

There are many issues and challenge to address, but none of them seem impossible to overcome. The EGU Sharing Geoscience Online have shown an effective alternative to gather together thousands of scientists without making them travel, thanks to the creativity and the hard work of the organizers. It let us believe we saw the (much needed) future of conferences.

Is the future already here, or will we see each other in Vienna next year?

The EGU Session NH5.6 – Subaqueous mass movements: triggers, dynamics and hazards conveners.

Jonathan Ford ESR2

I presented an example of using seismic diffraction imaging to better image the internal structure of submarine landslide deposits. Several SLATE members were involved in the acquisition of this data during the INSIGHT (Legs 1 and 2) cruises, particularly PIs Roger Urgeles and Eulàlia Gràcia.

As I had no idea what to expect from the new online format, I simply uploaded the slides that I would have presented in Vienna. During the live-chat I introduced the presentation with a few sentences, the audience spent three minutes reading the slides and then five minutes of text-based discussion followed. The discussion was a little frantic - an oral presentation is nerve-wracking, but you never have to respond to several questions simultaneously! In hindsight I would have prepared fewer slides or an extended poster, similar to the existing PICO format at EGU. But I do think the informal chat allowed people to ask questions which they might not have asked during an oral presentation, and there was some good discussion and good points raised for all the presentations.

Ricarda Gatter ESR9

“One of the most interesting and stressful experiences – and I was just reading the chat!”

I was not planning on joining the EGU General Assembly this year, as it was scheduled right in the middle of my secondment in Southampton. Well, plans change and I got the opportunity to follow this year’s conference after all. In particular, it allowed me to join the great session convened by Davide (ESR 6), Shray (ESR 4), Kate (ESR 5), Maarten (ESR 10) and William (ESR 12) - Subaqueous mass movements: triggers, dynamics and hazards. Looking back, I do not know if it was the best or most stressful experience ever 😀 It was amazing that we could chat – quite literally, in a chat portal – about ongoing science, ideas and controversies. I have to admit, however, following the ongoing discussion was also sometimes challenging – my highest respect to all the presenters and conveners! I think as a whole it was a great opportunity to be able to discuss science. Nevertheless, I am looking forward to the next conference – hopefully back in Vienna.

Location

• Sharing Geoscience Online

Conference Schedule

• Online Session Programme

SLATE ParticipantsConveners:

• S. Badhani, ESR4
• K. Heerema, ESR5
• D. Mencaroni, ESR6
• M. Hejinen, ESR10
• W. Meservy, ESR12

Presenters:

• J. Ford, ESR2
• S. Badhani, ESR4
• D. Mencaroni, ESR6
• S. Collico, ESR8

A GUIDE AROUND EGU 2019

ESR1, ESR 2, ESR 3, ESR 4, ESR 5, ESR 6, ESR 7, ESR 8, ESR 9, ESR 12, ESR 13, ESR 14, ESR15 | @ VIENNA, AUSTRIA (7-12 April 2019)

“The EGU General Assembly 2019 was a great success with 5,531 oral, 9,432 poster, and 1,287 PICO presentations that were attended by 16,273 scientists from 113 countries” (Copernicus Meetings, 2019).

SLATE was well represented with 12 PhD candidates, PIs (Achim Kopf, Michael Clare, Carl Harbitz, Finn Lovholt, Michael Strasser) and Aggeliki Georgiopoulou from the advisory board presenting their work.

Get your patch and let’s get started. Presenting our work

Rachel, Jonathan, Tugdual, Shray, Kate, William and Matthias drew crowds of people into the lecture rooms with their amazing presentations. They spoke on a variety of topics; covering different aspects of turbidites and their evolution, contourites and submarine landslides.

“I was very happy to be able to present my work at this conference, as it gives an occasion to present our work in front of a wide audience with very diverse backgrounds. I came out with very good feedback and advice for my work.” (Tugdual Gauchery, ESR 3)

„It was my first time at the EGU and it was overwhelmingly large. I had the opportunity to talk to several researchers after my talk – it is always good to get feedback on both the positive and negative parts of ones research.” (Shray Badhani, ESR 4)

Davide, Ting-Wei, Stefano, Ricarda and Maddalena presented their work in the poster sessions and attracted a lot of people.

“Presenting a poster at a conference like EGU is a great learning opportunity for any early career scientist. On one hand, I had the chance to discuss my research with people working in the same research field and to meet scientists I had only known from reading their papers. What surprised me the most, however, were the questions I got from scientists specialized in completely different fields, looking at my project from a prospective I do not usually consider. People who were just randomly walking around posters asked me the most challenging questions, highlighting issues that I never considered before, but that helped me to have a more complete understanding of what I am studying.” (Davide Mencaroni,  ESR 6)

And learning new things

Apart from presenting our own work, we took the opportunity to learn more about work from outside our own fields. Alongside the traditional poster and oral presentations, EGU also hosts so called “PICO” presentations (Presenting Interative COntent) and short courses on more general topics in science.

“One thing that I really enjoyed about EGU were the PICO sessions. PICOs start with quick-fire two minute presentations from each researcher to briefly introduce their topic and state their main conclusions. After, everyone moves across to the interactive area, where each presenter has their own workstation and large screen. This really facilitates discussion and allows for more flexibility that a standard poster or talk. For me, the PICO sessions are a great way to be introduced to an unfamiliar area, because the results are presented up front and you get to see a rapid cross section of the state-of-the-art in a particular field.” (Jonathan Ford, ESR 2)

 “It was a great opportunity to get some insights from overlapping, but vastly different, fields. For instance to see what the current state of research in Powder Snow Avalanches is, or to get some background knowledge on numerical modelling in turbidity currents as preparation for my secondment at NGI.” (Kate Heerema, ESR 5)

“One of the most exciting sessions I attended was on the recent tsunami events in Sulawesi and West Java (Krakatao), Indonesia (Blog). Although most of the group seemed to agree that these tsunami events were, in fact, submarine landslide-related, there was some surprisingly lively pushback from at least one seasoned researcher. I think the overall tsunami community seems to be experiencing a small paradigm shift in how they think about tsunami hazards. I also enjoyed stopping by different poster sessions related to tsunami hazards and had some great networking conversations with a group of researchers from Singapore about their work and how it relates to some tsunami survey work that I previously did as a master’s student” (William Meservy, ESR 12)

“I went to three courses, of which I especially liked the “Visualizing Science” course. I think we often forget how important it is to present our research to other scientists, as well as to the general public.” (Ricarda Gatter, ESR 9)

“The quantity and variety of soft skill courses available at the EGU undoubtedly adds value to the conference. I attended a course about communicating science with the general public and enjoyed hearing different perspectives about what effective communication looks like, and how that can take different forms. One point that stood out was the value of knowing when it is worthwhile to get the assistance of people who are trained in communication, such as journalists, to communicate significant results.” (Rachel Barrett, ESR 1)

Need help to find your way around? - use the EGU App

Finding your way around a big conference such as EGU can be difficult. Luckily, there was an app available in which you could find all the contributions and put together your personal programme. In addition, we kept everybody up to date with our own contributions via Twitter.

“I knew that EGU is the most important Geoscience conference in Europe, but I didn’t expect something like this. It was difficult not to be impressed by the amount of different topics and talks, but above all, I was struck by the hundreds of posters that everyday are hanging in these huge rooms.” (Maddalena Sammartini, ESR 15)

To sum it up

“I was honestly impressed by the EGU conference. It was the perfect environment to discuss a wide range of research topics and learn about other researchers’ PhD experiences.” (Stefano Collico, ESR 8)

 “It is such a great international experience. I even met my friends from my home university in India. I am already looking forward to EGU2020.” (Shray Badhani, ESR 4)

“One of the highlights of the experience for me was that I was lucky enough to be able to bring my wife and kids along to explore Vienna. In the evenings, we were able to walk in the city together and eat a lot of goulash and Viennese chocolate cake” (William Meservy, ESR 12)

“EGU is an essential event for every geoscientist working Europe. It is the perfect opportunity to  meet new people with common interests, present the latest progress of your work, get valuable feedback and to foster old friendships” (Matthias Rauter, ESR 14)

EGU - Let's meet again Location

• Vienna, Austria

Venue

• Austria Center Vienna

Conference Schedule

• Online Session Programme

SLATE participants ESRs:

• R. Barrett, ESR1 [Talk]
• J. Ford, ESR2 [Talk]
• T. Gauchery, ESR3 [Talk]
• S. Badhani, ESR4 [Talk]
• K. Heerema, ESR5 [Talk]
• D. Mencaroni, ESR6 [Poster]
• T-W Wu, ESR7 [Poster]
• S. Collico, ESR8 [Poster]
• R. Gatter, ESR9 [Poster]
• W. Meservy [Talk]
• T. Zengaffinen, ESR13 [Poster]
• M. Rauter, ESR14 [Talk]
• M. Sammartini, ESR15 [Poster]

other SLATE members:

• A. Kopf, PI of ESR7 [Poster]
• M. Clare, PI of ESR10 [PICO]
• C. Harbitz, PI of ESR13
• F. Løvholt, PI of ESR14 [Poster]
• F. Løvholt, PI of ESR14 [Convener]
• M. Strasser, PI of ESR15
• A. Georgiopoulou, Advisory Board [Talk]

ESRs' experiences of the "International Sedimentological Congress" 2018 (ISC2018)

Shray Badhani (ESR4), Davide Mencaroni (ESR6), Maarten Heijnen (ESR10) | @ Québec, Canada (13-17 August 2018)

The International Sedimentological Congress (ISC) 2018 was held from 13-17 August in Quebec, Canada. The ISC is organised every four years by the International Association of Sedimentologists (IAS). A “regular” IAS meeting takes place somewhere in or around Europe in the other years. The conference consisted of four days of scientific presentations on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday and several courses and fieldtrips on the Wednesday, before the conference, and after the conference. The days with scientific presentations started with parallel oral sessions at 8.30, a keynote presentation at 10.40, and more parallel session from 11.45 till 17.00. The day ended with a 2-hour poster session. Besides long days of science, the attendees could also enjoy themselves during the conference dinner on Wednesday, early-career drinks on Tuesday, and the goodbye drinks on Friday. SLATE was represented at the ISC by three ESRs:

• Shray Badhani (ESR 4)
• Davide Mencaroni (ESR 6)
• Maarten Heijnen (ESR 10)

Shray Badhani ESR 4

"As my participation to the ISC 2018 was not finalized until the last week, it came as an adventure in the end and fortunately I made it to the conference. Although I had to do a lot of last minute planning, as putting up a piece of science in front of experts is always challenging. However, I believe that this happens quite often in the world of science. Nevertheless, I ended up having a lot fun during the conference and I can certainly say that it was one of the best conferences I have attended so far.

I presented a poster entitled “Seafloor instabilities in the Rhône turbiditic levee complexes, Western Mediterranean: morphology, timing and emplacement, and potential relationship with active faulting” in the session “Effect of mass movements on the sedimentological environment” on Thursday, 16th and Friday, 17th.

I attended several interesting talks related to deep sea environment, submarine mass movements and trending topics in sedimentology. I also had the opportunity to talk to the researchers working on submarine mass movements and share my ideas to them and at times invite them to my session to have an exchange. I was able to get in touch with several researchers including Michele Rebesco from OGS, Italy, Ariane Locat from University of Laval and Marc De Batist from University of Ghent to get some feedback about my interpretations on the submarine landslide on the Eastern levee of the Petit Rhône Canyon. Also, I got pleasantly surprised when I saw “The” David Piper reading my poster and I got an opportunity to discuss my results with him.

Additionally, I attended two workshops: 1) How to write a Research Proposal (by Adrian Immenhauser, University of Bochum and IAS President) and 2) How to write an article for Sedimentology or The Depositional Record (by Nigel Mountney, Chief editor of Sedimentology, University of Leeds and Peter Swart, Chief Editor of The Depositional Record, University of Miami). These workshops were organised by the Early Career Scientists committee of the IAS. The first workshop focused on informing the target audience about how to apply for a range of funding options available at the IAS such as travel grants or post graduate grants etc. As the title suggests, the second workshop was focused on how to write an article for Sedimentology or The Depositional Record, but was not only limited to that. The tutors also answered some practical questions such as: How to select an appropriate journal for the research? How to organise the manuscript? What should be the length of the manuscript? What are the key elements that the editors are going to look for? What to do to increase the visibility of the research? etc.

Overall, the five days of the conference were intensively fruitful and significantly enhanced my knowledge about current topics in sedimentology. The knowledge I gathered during the conference will surely help me move further in my research."

Davide Mencaroni ESR 6

"The ISC 2018 is not something I am going to forget, at least because it was my first time in lots of aspects: first time in Quebec. First time in Canada. First conference I attended since my PhD started, first poster presentation ever, and in general first time I presented my project outside my work environment.

The period before the conference has been particularly intense in terms of work, since beside my work I was in charge to present another poster and an oral presentation about other projects I am involved at ICM. Nevertheless, since all my duties were planned for the last two days of the conference, I had plenty of time to enjoy the congress.

One of the most useful things about such a conference, which gathers geologist from all around the world and the most important institutes worldwide, is to have a better understanding on which are the main focuses for the sedimentology community in our times, and what is people working on. Mass transport deposits were definitely one of the key topics on the conference: besides a session specifically dedicated to the topic, presentations about submarine landslides were performed basically in any of the sessions, even in the ones I did not think I would have been interested in joining. This testifies how widespread is the topic in sedimentology, and how a multi-disciplinary approach is a key factor to fully understand them.

In my opinion, such a big event for specialists is first of all a unique opportunity for networking. From old professors who meet once again to remember that campaign they did together many years before, to PhD students who get triggered by listening the talk from a name they saw in many papers, people were at ISC to meet people. From this point of view, my poster presentation was for me a big success: reading from the badge the name of a someone who is a big expert about my study area or a technique I am using, standing in front of my poster and listening to what I am trying to do, was a major satisfaction. And of course a big opportunity to get hints on how to proceed or what to review.

Last but not least, thanks to this conference I discovered the beautiful city of Quebec and the kindness of its people. It was quite a pity that I could not stop by some more days and explore the surrounding nature after the conference, but for sure it will not be the last time I visit that beautiful part of the world."

Maarten Heijnen ESR 10

"I was super excited when I received the email that my abstract entitled: “Upstream-migrating knickpoints: The dominant control on submarine channel evolution?” had been accepted as an oral presentation. The ISC is one of the biggest conferences in the world for a sedimentologist, so I was not expecting to get an oral as a first-year PhD student. I was happy yet slightly tense. Fortunately, I gave a presentation on the same topic before, making me slightly less nervous. After making my presentation and practising it one last time, I got in the airplane to Quebec.

I participated in the pre-conference workshop “Supercritical-flow processes and bedforms: state-of-the-art and future directions”, organised by Arnoud Slootman (King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia), Alexandre Normandeau (Natural Resources Canada, Dartmouth), Stephen Hubbard (University of Calgary, Canada), and Matthieu Cartigny (Durham University, UK). I learned a lot about the present ideas on supercritical flow and the bedforms it creates, what methods are used in studying this, and in what settings these bedforms can be found. A lot of the structures and problems addressed during the workshop are also present in my data, so it was good to learn more about them and discuss with other scientists working in similar fields.

It was time for the ice-breaker straight after the workshop. It was nice to see familiar faces, including Shray and Davide of course, and meet some new people in a casual setting before the conference started. Then, on Monday, the conference really started. It was great to see so many other sedimentologists and I enjoyed the presentations, posters, and discussions. The IAS initiated several activities for early career scientists this year, including a special lounge in the poster hall and an early career scientists’ night on Tuesday. Scientist could present their work in this lounge in a slightly more informal setting. I volunteered to give my talk here on Monday afternoon, to practise my talk, and to advertise for my talk on Friday a little. I received positive reactions and useful to the point feedback on my talk from several people. This really helped improving my talk on Friday and made me feel a bit more confident about it.

I enjoyed some exciting science and learned a lot from it, had a great time during the early career scientists’ night, and felt a little posh during the beautiful conference dinner during the next few days. And then it was Friday. My talk was scheduled for 9.10AM. I practised my talk before going to bed early the night before, but I was still nervous. I think my presentation went well and got some good reactions on it afterwards.

Overall, I really enjoyed the conference a lot. The combination of cool science, nice people, fun activities, and a beautiful city and congress venue made ISC2018 for me a great success!"

Location

• Québec, Canada

Venue

• Québec City Convention Centre

Conference Schedule

• Program at a glance [PDF]
• Full Program at a glance [LINK]

SLATE participants

• S. Badhani, ESR4 [Poster]
• D. Mencaroni, ESR6 [Poster]
• M. Heijnen, ESR10 [Talk]

Impressions

Impressions from leg 1 of the Insight cruise

Jonathan Ford (ESR 2), Davide Mencaroni (ESR 6), William Meservy (ESR 12) | @ RV Sarmiento de Gamboa (April/May 2018)

One of the goals of SLATE is to better understand geohazards related to submarine landslides. To achieve this, the network actively promotes the exploration of marine settings and SLATE members are encouraged to take part in oceanographic research cruises. We recently participated in the INSIGHT (Leg 1) cruise onboard the Sarmiento de Gamboa alongside principal investigators Eulália Gracia and Roger Urgeles.

The general objective of INSIGHT is to image and sample the seafloor and its subsurface to better understand the earthquake and tsunami hazard in the Gulf of Cadiz. To accomplish this, the Sarmiento de Gamboa was outfitted with seismic guns and streamers, sub-bottom profiler equipment, the AUV (autonomous underwater vehicle) “Abyss” from GEOMAR, and equipment to collect gravity cores of seafloor sediments.

Study areas

The cruise departed from Vigo, Spain on 29th April and spent several days at each area of interest collecting data:

Marques de Pombal Fault Zone

An active thrust fault thought to be responsible for the 1755 Lisbon earthquake and resulting tsunami. This area is thought to have a particularly high submarine landslide hazard as there is evidence of repeated slope failure associated with the fault in the recent geologic record.

Lineament South (west)

The west side of Lineament South, which marks the Eurasian - African plate boundary, was imaged and cored at several locations. Lineament South trends WNW-ESE and is a 3-6 km wide, dextral, strike-slip fault extending the length of the Gulf of Cadiz and cutting the entire sedimentary sequence, as well as separating two different types of oceanic crust. Portions of its western half that were previously explored during other campaigns found the formation of gas hydrates and presence of mud volcanoes: evidence of fluids rising from depth.

Lineament South (east)

Close to the coast of Morocco, the eastern half of Lineament South traverses the accretionary wedge where the Eurasian plate subducts under the African plate. Additionally, just north of the fault, two large mud volcanoes and associated radial landslides were surveyed by the AUV.

Portimao Bank

A Mesozoic-aged, inverted half-graben that is flanked by multiple submarine landslides on its south side. These slides may be associated with the upwelling of a large, evaporitic dome structure called the Don Carlos Diapir. The Portimao Bank seamount is bound by active thrust faults on its north and south ends.

Science onboard

During the expedition, all three of us assisted with gravity core acquisition, which involved cutting, sealing, and labelling each core into 1 m sections for further examination at the University of Barcelona. Here, Davide and William ran each unopened core through a Multi-Sensor Core Logger to measure geophysical properties like density, P-wave velocity, resistivity, and magnetic susceptibility. Future analyses require the cores be split, visually described, and then stored in a refrigerated archive at the Institute of Marine Science of Barcelona.

Additionally, each of us had different roles on the vessel:

"I worked with the acoustic instrumentation. The Sarmiento de Gamboa is equipped with multibeam and Parasound echosounders that allowed us to obtain high-resolution bathymetric images (with less detail, but greater coverage than the AUV) and sub-bottom profiles of the first few metres of sediment for each area of investigation and during transits. I was responsible for data acquisition, monitoring, and maintaining the observers logs. I also experimented with some preliminary filtering on the Parasound data to improve the imaging of the stratigraphy as much as possible." Davide Mencaroni ESR 6 "My primary duty was to initiate and monitor the multi-channel seismic acquisition software. For each new line, after the streamers and airguns were deployed by the crew, I would initiate a “soft start” or step-by-step increase of the number of guns being fired until the entire array could be fired simultaneously every 6-7 seconds. Gradual airgun buildups like this are common protocol for seismic exploration and are done to gently warn away nearby marine mammals that may be uncomfortable with the sound of the airguns. After the airguns were fully engaged, my responsibilities would shift to ensuring that the ship was on course and initiating, monitoring, and occasionally trouble-shooting the acquisition software." William Meservy ESR 12 "My role onboard was as part of the seismic processing team. Multi-channel seismic data are processed immediately after acquisition to check for data problems and ensure that targets have been imaged correctly. The main tasks onboard are i) QC and smoothing of the GPS navigation ii) QC of raw field records, noting the amount and types of noise present in the data iii) basic processing, including an initial pass of velocity analysis and migration. A more detailed processing flow will be applied onshore to further improve the image." Jonathan Ford ESR 2 Scientific impact

Enjoying generally good weather conditions and no major technical problems during the cruise contributed to the successful acquisition of a significant amount of new data. These include >1000 km of high resolution 2D multi-channel seismic lines and sub-bottom profiles, >100 km² of high resolution AUV bathymetry, and 16 gravity cores. These data will be used by scientists who took part in the expedition for a wide variety of projects, including research related to seismic risk assessment on active faults, submarine slope stability, mud volcanoes, and environmental reconstruction based on deep-water corals.

For the SLATE network specifically, this campaign has been crucial for collecting data to be used in the study of the Marques de Pombal landslide (ESR6), for the creation of a landslides catalog in the Southwestern Iberian Margin (ESR12), and for new high-resolution seismic images of internal structure within submarine landslide deposits (ESR2).

Work areas

• Marques de Pombal Fault Zone
• Lineament South (west)
• Lineament South (east)
• Portimao Bank

Vessel

• RV Sarmiento de Gamboa

Impressions

Review of the ECORD Training Course 2018: "Virtual Ship Experience"

Shray Badhani (ESR 4), Monika Wiebe (ESR 11), Ting-Wei Wu (ESR 7) | @ MARUM, Bremen, Germany (23-27 April 2018)

From 23rd to 27th April, a group of seven SLATE ESRs participated in the ECORD Training Course 2018, which took place at MARUM – Center for Marine Environmental Sciences, Bremen. The first thing we had to get used to during this course was the number of abbreviations - ECORD, IODP, BCR, MSP, LWD, MSCL, and so on – it was easy to get confused there.

First of all, ECORD is short for European Consortium for Ocean Research Drilling, which consists of 14 European countries and Canada. It is also part of IODP – the International Ocean Discovery Program, a collaboration of 23 nations. IODP conducts research expeditions world-wide that recover sediment and hard rock cores from the seafloor in order to explore and solve scientific questions. The recovered cores are first processed onboard and then analysed onshore. Finally they are stored in one of the three core repositories, one of which is located at MARUM in Bremen. The Bremen Core Repository (BCR) hosts all cores from the North and South Atlantic Ocean; it presently contains 156 km of IODP cores from 90 expeditions.

The idea of the ECORD Training Course is to prepare and train young scientists for life and work aboard an IODP expedition. In total we were 31 participants, mainly PhD students, from different fields out of the marine sciences. The course provided us with a one-week “Vir­tual Ship Ex­per­i­ence” fo­cus­ing on the various methods used to analyse cores on board, but also on life on an IODP ship, and how to write an IODP proposal. It consisted of four main parts:

1. Introduction to IODP and ECORD

The course started with a general welcome, introduction and information part. Ursula Röhl, Rüdiger Stein and Holger Kuhlmann introduced us to the structure and objectives of IODP and ECORD as well as the purpose of this training course. Even though it was also a bit confusing, it was interesting to hear about what has to happen and how all the different panels and boards work together until an expedition can actually take place. In the end of this introductory session, Dierk Hebbeln took us on a tour through the MARUM. We visited the IODP core repository and also had a look at the different kinds of marine technology that are developed and applied by the MARUM, including the MeBo drill rig.

2. Virtual shipboard work at BCR/MARUM

In this part we learned how to work on cores on board. One of the most important parts is the core description. Core description is the first thing to do when the cores are obtained on deck before sediment properties begin to change afterwards. Visual observation at the time when the cores are still “fresh” can only rely on the skills of the describers. After the core description, the cores are placed on the machines (e.g. Multi-Sensor Core Logger, MSCL) for core logging, high-resolution linescan imaging and color scanning, and then sampled for different methods to obtain other physical and chemical properties. For example, pore water acquisition and analysis can provide us with concentration data such as salinity, nutrients, PH, alkalinity, ammonium, chloride, and sulphide. Smear slide analysis is a very simple and inexpensive way to determine some major components (e.g. sediment type and diatom data) of fine-grained sediments under the microscope. Biostratigraphy also uses microscopes but focuses on correlating and assigning relative ages of sediments by using the fossil assemblages contained within them.

3. Introductory seminars to general shipboard activities

In addition to these lab turns which were done in small groups, we also had seminars as a whole group. These gave us some more information as to what exactly happens on an IODP expedition. One of the most interesting and memorable talks was held by Oscar Romero who gave us a lively report of a recent expedition he attended, JR374. This expedition on IODP vessel JOIDES Resolution went from New Zealand to the West Antarctic ice sheet in order to investigate climatic and oceanic changes. With his pictures and stories Oscar Romero gave us a good idea on how both work and leisure time is spent on an IODP expedition. In this part we also learned how to obtain data and samples from previous expeditions, and did some practical work on core correlation and splicing. This is a method that ensures that a complete record is obtained by drilling more than one hole on one site.

4. Interactive session on defining drilling targets and strategies including drilling proposal writing

A successful IODP proposal needs a great idea, lots of planning, and execution at the right time due to the geographical location of the drilling vessels. In this session, we were given a general idea of a timeline of a successful IODP proposal and an introductory seminar on proposal writing. Our group was then asked to form small teams of 5-6 participants to write a short proposal and present it in front of the rest of the group and the lecturers. It was a challenging task for all of us since we all had different scientific backgrounds and had to find a way to present the ideas of the whole team. However, we were told that the most successful proposals are usually the ones which have the most multi-disciplinary objectives.

Overall the ECORD training course was a success and provided all of us with new knowledge and understanding as to what IODP is and does, and how we personally can use the acquired data or get involved.

"It is very useful to know how to work with different disciplines on board. I learned the orders of experiments and how a cruise mission is organized. I think the most precious part of the course is that it strengthened my skills to communicate and cooperate with researchers with different backgrounds." Ting-Wei Wu ESR 7 "As a geophysicist, I spend most of my time working behind a computer -- so getting some "hands on" experience working with the cores and the laboratory analysis was great. I hope to use downhole logs and physical property measurements from the NanTroSEIZE expeditions during my PhD. For me it was very useful to learn more about the core handling and data archiving procedures, particularly around splicing core sections. I would recommend this course to anyone who plans to use any IODP datasets, as it was an excellent overview of the technical operations and wider scientific goals of the programme." Jonathan Ford ESR 2 “The IODP Training Course was very instructive; especially to learn more about all the analyses proceeded on the cores from the recovery until the storage. Even if some of the methods used were familiar to me, I found it very interesting to see how they use these methods during an IODP cruise and how a day on board for each of them looks like. I particularly liked the hard rock core description, which was a step back in time to my first year at university and was a pleasant experience. In addition, I was very surprised by the biostratigraphy course, which the speaker made very interesting. Overall, it was a great experience, the team was really nice and the course made me want to participate in IODP expeditions.” Tugdual Gauchery ESR 3 “I applied to the course without really knowing what to expect and how it might help me in my research. Now I am glad that I had the chance to attend, as it really helped me to understand better what kind of data is obtained and why. For me the physical properties sessions were the most important ones as I am using this data and now know better how to work with it. I also highly enjoyed the chance to get to know other young scientists from around the world and hear about their different research topics.” Monika Wiebe ESR 11 “My main motivation to attend the course was to learn different techniques for sediment core analysis, which I will apply during the course of my PhD. It was also helpful to know about the accessibility of the openly available IODP core data, which we can also share with our colleagues. The course also helped me to grow my network in the scientific community, which is imperative for a career in academics.” Shray Badhani ESR 4 "The most important thing I got from the ECORD training course was to understand how to get the most out of IODP data. During the virtual ship labs we had the opportunity to see how very different types of data are collected and analyzed, providing a complete overview about what information one can get from a core. In this way I worked on topics that I am not really an expert in, and that I never thought could be useful for my research. The ECORD course provided a solid idea on how very different types of well data have to be considered together, in order to have a complete understanding about the well, and this is something I will definitely keep in mind while using their data in my research. Beside this, I obviously was really fascinated by the stories of IODP campaigns from people who have had the opportunity to directly live the experience. Who knows, maybe one day I will also be able to be part of the crew..." Davide Mencaroni ESR 6 Location

• MARUM, Bremen, Germany

Venue

• MARUM

Course Schedule

• Printout Program [PDF]

SLATE participants

• J. Ford, ESR2
• T. Gauchery, ESR3
• S. Badhani, ESR4
• D. Mencaroni, ESR6 
• T.-W. Wu, ESR7 
• R. Gatter, ESR9 
• M. Wiebe, ESR10

Impressions