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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 113-116 of 125 items.

Diving in the Gulf of Mexico: With the submersible ALVIN, the researchers from Bremen were able to reach the seafloor. There they used ALVIN's grab arm to collect sediment cores from the seabed. White-orange coloured microbial mats made of sulfur-oxidizin

Apr 21, 2020

New ethane-munching microbes discovered at hot vents

Researchers from MARUM – Center for Marine Environmental Sciences at the University of Bremen and the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology Bremen ...

MARUM-MeBo-pilots Thorsten Klein (left) und Siefke Fröhlich in the MARUM-MeBo70 operation container on deck of RV Polarstern during a drill. Photo: T. Ronge, Alfred-Wegener-Institut

Apr 1, 2020

Traces of rainforests in West Antarctica

An international team of researchers led by geoscientists from the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research, have now ...

Image of a vug within a carbonate vein in one of the rock cores investigated for microbiology. Photo: William Crawford and IODP

Mar 11, 2020

Microbes far beneath the ocean floor rely on recycling to survive

An international team of researchers has studied the survival mechanisms of microorganisms in rocks that nestle in the lower oceanic crust thousands of ...

Mar 9, 2020

Live dive to the ocean floor

The researchers of the SO272 expedition on board the research vessel SONNE are currently more than 10,000 kilometers away from Bremen. What can be seen ...

The Ocean Floor – Earth’s Uncharted Interface

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