Expressions of Intent for IPY 2007-2008 Activities

Expression of Interest Details

PROPOSAL INFORMATION

Polar gas hydrate systems of the Earth: Their influence on past, present, and future geological and ocean-atmosphere components  (Polar gas hydrate systems of the Earth (POLAREARTH))

Outline
Gas hydrates appear to occur in huge quantities in the sub-seabed of polar regions. Hydrates are ice-like compounds, where the structural molecules of water have guest sites occupied by gas molecules, mainly methane. Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas believed to have modulated the earth climate through its release in gaseous form from solid hydrate reservoirs in response to natural changes. We are only at the beginning of understanding how hydrates may function in the methane-carbon-dioxide systems of the geo-biosphere of polar regions, and how it interacts with natural changes of pressure and temperature to shape the seabed of polar continental margins. In polar regions, oceanic methane hydrates occur in two different environments; the first is the near surface sediments of permafrost regions of continental shelves, and the second is the deep-water sediments of continental margins. The source of the methane can be either the microbial degradation of organic matter in shallower sediments or deeper-seated thermogenic methane accumulations. The functioning of the whole system of sequestration and release of methane in polar regions, its response to environmental changes such as the waxing and waning of ice sheets, ocean warming, and the effect of sediment degassing on the stability of submarine slopes are still largely unknown. Their detailed understanding affects a wide range of environmental issues in the past and even more important in the future. Gas hydrates today appears to be important for three main issues: 1. Impact on global climate change through the release or storage of the greenhouse gas methane. 2. Impact on seafloor stability contributing to the development of submarine sliding. 3. Major implications for the understanding of deep microbial ecosystems. Seismic and geochemical investigations are the principal tools for identifying the presence of gas hydrates, and our group has taken a leading role in gas hydrate research by using geophysics in cooperation with microbial research teams. Gas hydrates are known to be widespread within the continental shelves and slopes of the Arctic Ocean and along the Antarctic continental margin. Particularly the Arctic Ocean with its enormous wide shelves and ocean margins has a climatic, oceanographic and energy resource influence far beyond its limited geographic extent. Because of the key role of polar earth regions in controlling the climatic evolution in the Cenozoic, because of the extraordinarily steep slopes in polar margin regions, and because of the direct actions of ice sheets on the seabed, we have developed three scientific goals: They are to determine and to understand: 1. The nature, distribution and concentration of gas hydrates in Arctic and Antarctic continental margins, because they will play a major role in a future warming world which may unleash vast amounts of methane from the sub-seabed reservoir. 2. The role of gas hydrates in geohazard developments of Arctic continental margins, using the Antarctic margin as remote comparative region. We will pay particular attention to the generation of giant sediment slides from the dissociation of deep-seated gas hydrates, and their potential for generating Tsunamis. 3. The interaction between shallow gas hydrates and deep methane accumulations to understand the paths and modes of fluid migration in the development of divergent polar margins.

What significant advance(s) in relation to the IPY themes and targets can be anticipated from this project?
The recognition of gas hydrates in Arctic Permaforst regions on land of Alaska and Siberia stimulated renewed interest in the role of gas hydrates as an energy resource but neglected their potential environmental impact. Therefore, the main goal of POLAREARTH is to determine how and when gashydrate systems in polar regions change, and how these changes relate to cryosphere and oceanosphere conditions, which link directly to the global climatic system (IPY themes, 1, 2, 3) Second, we will investigate at what level a polar gas hydrate system may contribute to greenhouse gas emissions and to Arctic geohazards such as blow out craters or megaslides on polar continental margins. This research would contribute extensively to themes 1 to 4 and will provide support for IPY themes 5 and 6.

What international collaboration is involved in this project?
International collaboration in the interdisciplinary and multinational field of gashydrate, climate and geohazard research on continental margins has been established over the last 15 years through a number of EU and international coordinated projects partly led by the PI. It involves sharing of the European research vessels and facilities, forefront modelling groups, training of young students, outreach to the public, joint conferences and publications. The existing network can be used involving scientists from USA, Canada, UK, France, Spain, Italy, Germany, Norway, and Denmark and is open to other contributors interested.

FIELD ACTIVITY DETAILS

Geographical location(s) for the proposed field activities:
The geographical areas for the proposed field work are twofold: 1) Areas with existing preliminary information are a backbone and involve Arctic continental margins N- and W- of Svalbard and the Barents Sea. 2) Areas of the Arctic continental margin towards Russia and Canada will be investigated in a second phase. 3) Areas of the Antarctic margin where gas hydrates are known to exists (namely South Shetland margin and the Wilkes Land margin); 4) Areas of the Antarctic margin where a gas hydrate potential exists (namely Wedell Sea, Ross Sea and Prydz Bay region)

Approximate timeframe(s) for proposed field activities:
Arctic: 2006 to IPY 2007/2008            
Antarctic: IPY 2007/2008            

Significant facilities will be required for this project:
We anticipate that IPY activities involve potentially research vessels from Norway, UK, Germany, Spain, and from Canada and USA as well as onboard geophysical, geological and geochemical equipment for seabed and sub-seabed studies. The use of ice-breakers or ice-strengthened vessels, AUV, and multi-inctrumnet platforms is anticipated due to the involvement of several nations. The amount of research activities of the groups determines the availability of lab space on board of research vessels for other groups. In general, these facilities will be used by other groups and should be available for other than IPY activities.

Will the project leave a legacy of infrastructure?
The present PI is coordinator of the EUROCORES EUROMARGIN program and the EU OMARC (Ocean Margin Deep Water Research Consortium) cluster program and PI in a number of EU projects involving more than 150 scientists, institutional collaborations in Europe and across the Atlantic, training programs, conferences, books and publications. The experience based on these and previous programs and project coordination’s will be used to establish a clear legacy infrastructure.The proposed project connects already to the local infrastructure of two other proposals led by IG of UIT in Norway namely “WARMPAST” (Morten Hald et al.) and “ICE-STREAMS” (Karin Andreassen et al.).

How is it envisaged that the required logistic support will be secured?
Consortium
Own national polar operator
National agency
Military support
Own support
Other sources of support

Has the project been "endorsed" at a national or international level?
Gas hydrate research is endorsed at a national (Norwegian GANS initiative; prof. Hans-Petter Sejrup et al.) but also at an international level, where energy related programs exist in USA, Japan, and India and gas hydrate technology projects have been funded by the EU or for example by the BMBF in Germany. The Italian Antarctic Program (PNRA) has invested in gas hydrate research in Antarctica with several multi-year research projects, and this provides also a solid data base.

PROJECT MANAGEMENT AND STRUCTURE

Is the project a short-term expansion (over the IPY 2007-2008 timeframe) of an existing plan, programme or initiative or is it a new autonomous proposal?

The project starts partly from an initiative leading to a new national gas hydrate program. This is to be developed into a network of European and cross Atlantic research activities. Such focussed international Arctic/Antarctic continental margin gas hydrate program should link also well to planned Arctic ocean cabled observatories.

How will the project be organised and managed?
Excellent management of the science will be fundamental to the success of thisproject, which will bring together teams of scientists to tackle really complex problems with the requirement for considerable amounts of new data collectionfrom very remote environments in sea-ice covered and harsh weather conditions.However, almost all partners have experience in previous EU and internationalprojects, some have been project co-ordinators. The management structureis streamlined: A Scientific Management Board (SMB) will comprise the workpackage leaders and be chaired by the co-ordinator. It will be responsible for delivery of each Work Package and especially for ensuring integration between Work Packages. It will also have responsibility for making annual reports. It will report to the Project Steering Committee(PSC), comprised of scientists from the leading oceanographic institutions in Europe and across the Atlantic.

What are the initial plans of the project for addressing the education, outreach and communication issues outlined in the Framework document?
To introduce POLAREARTH to the general public we will set up an integrated framework for education, training and outreach to create teaching aids, training classes for young researchers, and offshore industry to enhance public awareness of Arctic margin gas hydrate systems. We will focus on the implementation of four main tasks:1. Building an educational website and produce the first teaching aids2. Organising an initial workshop for postgraduates and other participants3. Running a ‘Training Through Research’ cruise4. In association with the SMB, dissemination of the results to the public and schools5. Field trips with students to sites of gas hydrate dissociation.

What are the initial plans of the project to address data management issues (as outlined in the Framework document)?
The data of this project will be archived, published and distributed through the World Data Centre for Marine Environmental Sciences (WDC-MARE) using the information system PANGAEA (http://www.pangaea.de) and MAREANO (http://www.mareano.no/). PANGAEA (Bremen, Germany) supports publishing, distributing and archiving data related to the marine environment, to climatic variability and to the solid earth while MAREANO (Trondheim, Norway) supports the Norwegian Sea and Margin archiving data. Data will be stored in a consistent format with related meta-information in a relational database. The network between project partners will be established as a client/server system on the Internet. The system is able to store any parameter which is defined in the project. Data will be geo-coded in time and space allowing the extraction of any subset of data from the inventory, e.g. for further modelling. For the exchange of unpublished data through the Internet during the project, it is possible to protect data sets by a password.

How is it proposed to fund the project?
An umbrella organisation could be funded through an ESF or an EU initiative while POLAREARTH participating projects are to be funded through already planned or newly submitted proposals to national funding agencies.

Is there additional information you wish to provide?
The group of scientists involved has a long term record of successful research on continental margins and gas hydrate as well as on securing funding, publications and training of young students in Europe, and trans Atlantic cooperation. They are known for their international research activities.

PROPOSER DETAILS

Professor Juergen Mienert
Department of Geology- University of Tromsø


Tromsø
N-9037
Norway

Tel: +47-7764-4446
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Fax: +47-7764-5600
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