FZT 15:  Ocean Margins - Research Topics in Marine Geosciences for the 21st Century

• Subject Area: Geosciences ; Chemistry
• Term: from 2001 to 2018
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 5485435

The research centre "Ocean Margins" at the University of Bremen was established in July 2001 to geoscientifically investigate the transitional zones between the oceans and the continents. The work of the research centre is a cooperative effort, with expertise provided by the geosciences department and other departments of the university, as well as by MARUM (Center for Marine Environmental Sciences), the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research, the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology, the Center for Marine Tropical Ecology, and the Senckenberg Research Institute in Wilhelmshaven. Funded by the DFG, the studies focus on four main research fields: Paleoenvironment, Biogeochemical processes, Sedimentation Processes, and Environmental Impact Research. The term "Ocean Margin" encompasses the region from the coast, across the shelf and continental slope, to the foot of the slope. Over 60 percent of the world"s population live in coastal regions. These people have a long history of exploitation of coastal waters, including the recovery of raw materials and food. Human activity has recently been expanding ever farther out into the ocean, where the ocean margins have become more attractive as centers for hydrocarbon exploration, industrial fishing, and other purposes. The research themes of the centre range from environmental changes in the Tertiary to the impact of recent coastal construction, and from microbial degradation in the sediment to large-scale sediment mass wasting along continental margins.
New full professorships and junior professorships have been established within the framework of this research centre. In addition to the primary research activities, a research infrastructure will be made available to outside researchers. Graduate education and the public understanding of science also play an important role.
In the course of the first two rounds of the Excellence Initiative, the Research Centre was promoted to that status of a cluster of excellence, which has increased the amount of funding it receives up to the average amount of €6.5 million per annum received by clusters of excellence.

• DFG Programme: DFG Research Centres

Projects

• Biogeochemical Processes (Project Heads Jørgensen, Bo Barker ;  Zabel, Matthias )
• Geohazards and human impacts (Project Heads Flemming, Burghard Walter ;  Spieß, Volkhard )
• Geosphere-Biosphere Interactions (Project Heads Boetius, Antje ;  Bohrmann, Gerhard ;  Hinrichs, Kai-Uwe ;  Zabel, Matthias )
• Infrastructure, Support and Central Management (Project Heads Schulz, Michael ;  Wefer, Gerold )
• Infrastructure, Support and Central Management (Project Head Schulz, Michael )
• Marine Technologies, Support and Management (Project Head Wefer, Gerold )
• Ocean and Climate (Project Heads Bickert, Torsten ;  Gersonde, Rainer ;  Röhl, Ursula ;  Schulz, Michael )
• Paleoenvironment (Project Heads Bickert, Torsten ;  Schulz, Michael )
• Sediment Dynamics (Project Heads von Dobeneck, Tilo ;  Hebbeln, Dierk ;  Huhn-Frehers, Katrin ;  Kopf, Achim )
• Sedimentation Processes (Project Heads von Dobeneck, Tilo ;  Hebbeln, Dierk )
• Seepage of fluid and gas (Project Heads Bohrmann, Gerhard ;  Hinrichs, Kai-Uwe )

• Applicant Institution: Universität Bremen
• Spokesperson: Professor Dr. Michael Schulz