Meeting notes prepared by Dr Warner Brueckmann

1. Introduction & Welcome

Paul Egerton welcomed all participants and explained the purpose and agenda of the meeting. At the previous meeting of the InterMargins Steering Committee (AGU Fall Meeting, 2000 in San Francisco) it was proposed to arrange a summit meeting in conjunction with the GSA/GSL meeting in Edinburgh to involve more countries in the InterMARGINS initiative.

2. Review of National Margins programmes and activities:

As usual all Steering Committee (SC) members present reviewed the current status of their respective countries margins research program.

* US

Garry Karner gave a short summary of the US MARGINS program‘s recent meetings and other activities. He reported on the successful "Subduction Factory" Theoretical &Experimental Institute held at the University of Oregon in August 2000 and the "Nankai Subduction Zone" Town Meeting held at the AGU Fall Meeting in San Francisco. Another workshop related to the MARGINS initiative "Rupturing of Continental Lithosphere" (RCL) was held in March 2001 in Sharm-el-Sheik, Egypt, a follow-up to the Snowbird, Utah, USA workshop on the same topic. In July 2000 a workshop on the Central America subduction zone was held in Costa Rica, which was very well attended internationally.

Within the framework of MARGINS, 38 projects are funded in 2001: 12 in the "SEIZE" initiative, 21 in the "Subduction Factory" initiative, and 5 in RCL.

Upcoming workshops include one on "Modelling of subduction zone dynamics and thermal structure", which was proposed by P. van Keken.

Garry Karner also mentioned that NSF is placing special emphasis on the development of a new data policy that would apply to all MARGINS projects. The MARGINS Office at LDEO will maintain a database of meta data. The issue of data management and archival of critical scientific data is becoming more and more important. Among the funded projects in 2001 is one by J.Syvitski that will attempt to develop a "Community sedimentary model science plan for Sedimentology and Stratigraphy", that will be web-based and accessible for all scientist interested.

* Germany

Warner Brückmann reviewed the current status of margins-oriented science funding in Germany, which had not changed very much from the last report in December 2001. A program has been established under the auspices of the Geotechnologies program which has issued a broad call for proposals due in early Fall of 2002. Topics of proposals are not limited to certain geographic areas or scientific topics. Therefore a broad participation in the German science community is expected.

He reported also on an invitation to the ODP SCICOM meeting in Shanghai in March where he gave a presentation introducing the InterMARGINS program.

* China (none available)

* UK (Paul Egerton)

* ESF (Paul Egerton)

3. Finances and subscriptions

Bob Whitmarsh updated the group with the current status of plans for moving the Intermargins Office to the Southampton Oceanography Centre, which should happen in late Fall of 2001. Following the InterRidge model the office would remain at SOC for the years 2002 and 2003.

Bilal Haq and Garry Karner stressed the point that it is critical for InterMARGINS to publicise its activities to gain more profile internationally. The ensuing discussion focussed on the possible role of InterMARGINS in the future.