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Ocean Floor

Ocean Floor

exploring & describing

The ocean floor is one of the most dynamic and geologically diverse regions on Earth. Its shape is constantly being changed by the input of sediments, their further transport and deposition as well as by submarine volcanism, earthquakes, anthropogenic influences and many other factors.

MARUM scientists deal with a broad spectrum of processes that shape the sea floor. These include current-driven sediment movement and its influence by human activities, the influence of seafloor dynamics on morphology and benthic ecosystems, as well as cascading natural hazards and their precursors. The interactions between the Earth's crust and the sediment bed at oceanic rift and spreading centers are also the focus of MARUM's research.

Some of the questions that drive our research are:

How are oceanic crust and plates formed and how do they evolve and how do they affect geochemical cycles in the ocean?
What controls slope instability and how does it affect human activities?
What processes control the transport and accumulation of sediments and other particles, such as organic carbon and plastic?
What factors control the growth of cold-water corals?

To answer those and many other questions, we apply different methods ranging from numerical modelling, analysis of sediment cores or observations of the seafloor using the technology of MARUM.

Participating Research Groups

Sampling with the diving robot MARUM-QUEST at a water depth of 520 meters on the Azores Plateau, Photo: MARUM - Center for Marine Environmental Sciences, University of Bremen

sea4society

Innovative approaches to improve the carbon storage potential of coastal vegetation ecosystems

(DAM Research Mission)

Pillow lava at the Mid-Atlantic Ridge axis. Photo: MARUM − Center for Marine Environmental Sciences, University of Bremen

AIMS3

Alternate scenarios, Innovative technologies, and Monitoring approaches for Sub-Seabed Storage of carbon dioxide

(DAM Research Mission)

Self-organized mineral structures, so-called biomorphs, which imitate living organisms but are the result of purely abiotic reactions. The size of these biomorphs is between one and 25 micrometers. Photo: Juan Manuel Garcia-Ruiz/CSIC

PROTOS

The Role of Silica in the Dawn of Life on our Planet

(ERC Synergy Grant)

Current news

Showing 101-104 of 125 items.

The energy transfer between waves, vortices and local turbulence is the focus of the Transregional Collaborative Research Center. Photo: T. Wasilewski

Nov 30, 2020

Universities of Hamburg and Bremen successfully enter second funding phase

The German Research Foundation (DFG) has approved a second funding phase for a project of the Universities of Hamburg (coordination) and Bremen and other ...

MARUM ROV SQUID being deployed (left), MARUM BlueROV resting on deck after deployment (right). Photo: MARUM - Center for Marine Environmental Sciences, University of Bremen

Oct 21, 2020

First successful work with underwater robots during the expedition M167

After a week of quarantine in a hotel in northern Germany, the German research vessel METEOR set out on an expedition in the framework of the EU Marine ...

Close to the island of Tristan da Cunha in the South Atlantic, there is apparently a hotspot that has been active for 130 million years. Photo: Wolfram Geißler, AWI

Sep 11, 2020

Magmatic hotspot in the South Atlantic

Island chains like Hawaii are situated above so-called hotspots, where hot magma flows upward continuously over long time periods. It has been much ...

Prof. Gerhard Borhmann receives the Gustav Steinmann Medal. Photo: Holger von Neuhoff

Sep 8, 2020

Gustav Steinmann Medal for Gerhard Bohrmann

Prof. Gerhard Bohrmann is awarded the Gustav Steinmann Medal by the German Geological Society - Geological Association (DGGV). The medal is the oldest ...

The Ocean Floor – Earth’s Uncharted Interface

MARUM is home to the Cluster of Excellence ›The Ocean Floor - Earth's Uncharted Interface‹.