K.G. Jebsen Centre for Deep Sea Research leads a new InterRidge working group

InterRidge is an international organization that pools the resources of its member countries to drive oceanic ridge research forward in a way that is cost-effective, cooperative and proven to be successful. It is concerned with promoting all aspects of mid-ocean ridge research (their study, use and protection) which can only be achieved by international cooperation. Recently, Thibaut Barreyre at the K.G. Jebsen Center for Deep Sea research has been appointed to lead a new InterRidge working group focusing on Integrating Multidisciplinary Observations in Vent Environments (IMOVE). This new international working group will contribute to the deep-sea research community by fostering and coordinating the integration of hydrothermal data from vent fields where observatory-style data have been acquired. A large set of temporal and spatially-variable multi-disciplinary data have been collected from deep-sea vent fields at considerable cost to the international community, but to this point the datasets have mostly been analyzed in a piecemeal fashion. Systematic efforts to integrate data from different disciplines and synthesize these products into quantitative, cross-disciplinary models relevant to hydrothermal processes on the global Mid Ocean Ridge (MOR) system have the potential to produce transformative scientific results, and are clearly needed at this point in time. The IMOVE working group will provide an international framework for this effort, and will effectively leverage all of the previous funding allocated (logistical and scientific) to gather and study this data by individual countries and organizations.