The ocean floor, which makes up 71 percent of the Earth’s solid surface, lies an average of 3,700 meters beneath the ocean surface. The difficulties related to accessibility necessitate ship expeditions and the use of highly specialized underwater equipment for its exploration. As yet, only a small fraction of the ocean floor has been scientifically investigated, but it is already known that this supposedly passive environment is an important interface with a wide range of functions that impact the entire Earth system. Geological, physical, biological and chemical processes interact at and within the ocean floor, thus influencing the climate system, the global carbon cycle, and biological productivity in the world ocean. We still know too little about ocean-floor processes to compile detailed global mass budgets.
The Cluster of Excellence ›The Ocean Floor – Earth’s Uncharted Interface‹ aims to quantify exchange processes at this significant boundary layer and their roles in the Earth system. The associated tasks demand the use of novel technologies for ocean-floor observation and sampling, highly sensitive analytical methods, and an expanded application of numerical models. Because of their scientific and technological complexity, the goals listed below can only be achieved through interdisciplinary research.
Scientists from the marine and materials sciences impressed the German federal and state governments in the Excellence Strategy: Two Clusters of Excellence ...
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When a remote-controlled diving robot is out in the deep sea, it can sometimes take weeks for samples and data to reach the home laboratories. This will ...
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During tests off the coast of Gran Canaria, the MARUM Glider Seafloor Imaging Module was used for the first time under deep-sea conditions. The camera ...
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A scientific expedition to the southern coast of Milos (Greece) has successfully tested an innovative underwater monitoring system to investigate shallow ...
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Fellows of the Hanse-Wissenschaftskolleg Delmenhorst took advantage of the stay in the dry dock of the Lloyd shipyard in Bremerhaven to visit the research ...
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The new remotely operated diving robot MARUM-QUEST5000 has dived for the first time. The dive took place as part of the ship expedition M210 from on board ...
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What happens to decayed plankton, sediment and tiny plastic particles when they sink from the surface to the bottom of the ocean? And what contribution ...
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In the global carbon cycle microorganisms have evolved a variety of methods for fixing carbon. Researchers from Bremen and Taiwan have investigated the ...
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