1. Introduction

2. Adoption of Agenda

The Agenda was circulated and introduced by the Chairman. The Agenda was accepted.

3. Minutes of the last meeting

The Minutes of the meeting held on 9th April, 2003, in Nice during the EGS/EGU Assembly, were circulated and accepted.

4. Matters arising

The principal matters arising, not covered by later items in the Agenda, were actions on the Chairman held over from December 2002 as follows;

1. Information about which proposals had been funded by the European Science Foundation (ESF) had appeared on the ESF web site to which there was now a link from the InterMARGINS web site.
2. Margins-related proposals to the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP) which had been scheduled as drilling legs were listed in the latest InterMARGINS Newsletter. Other proposals could be accessed via links on the InterMARGINS web site.
3. The setting up of 'country' pages on the InterMARGINS web site had been started. Pages for the USA and UK were already available. Pages for other countries active in margins research would appear early in 2004.
4. The Chairman had not yet contacted the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission regarding ways to assist scientists from less developed countries. He felt that the subject needed to be approached with caution when InterMARGINS was better established because of the likely bureaucracy involved. In any case a scientist from Morocco had been sponsored on a 10-day working visit to Rome which was in the spirit of the original suggestion to contact IOC.

5. Membership status

The Chairman reported on the status of membership applications by China and Germany.

1. The Chairman said he had received an email from Dr Mingbi Li, on behalf of Professor Jin, on 9th September 2003 in which it was indicated that China hoped to join InterMARGINS very soon.
2. The Chairman said he had received an email from Prof. Dr Onno Oncken on 28th November 2003 in which Dr Oncken stated 'there is nothing really new that I could tell you. I have forwarded all your informations to the steering committee of the Geotechnologies-program, where our margins-related activities are included. They have not yet reacted to these data. Given the current financial situation here in Germany, my gut feeling is that we will not see much movement in the near future.'
3. The Chairman invited Dr Faleide to make an important announcement about Norway's membership. Dr Faleide reported that on the very same day Norway's Full Membership of InterMARGINS for a period of 3 years was being confirmed at a meeting of the Norwegian Research Council. A new web site would be created (www.margins.no) and a newsletter would be published in English. Those present greeted this news with acclamation. The Chairman said that Norway would be a very welcome member of the InterMARGINS community.
4. The Chairman reported that he had recently discussed Spain becoming a member of InterMARGINS with Dr Montse Torné who was the Head of International Affairs in the Spanish science research council (CSIC). She had said it was a good time to consider the question because CSIC was preparing a new 4-year plan in which InterMARGINS membership could be included. The Chairman had followed up this conversation with an email message but there had been no further contact.
5. A discussion then took place regarding which other countries might be approached to see whether they were interested in Joining InterMARGINS. The Chairman explained that he had not very active in seeking new members in the last six months because he considered it more important first to develop the web site, set up the workshop in summer 2004 and generate an interesting newsletter. However since the web site and workshop were well under way the time was ripe to widen the number of members. The more members there were of InterMARGINS the greater the income from subscriptions and the more that could be achieved.
6. France. Dr Haq enquired about France. Dr Faleide pointed out that France had found it difficult even to join in Euromargins but the Chairman said he would approach GDR Marges [ Action Chairman ].
7. South Korea. Dr Haq recalled that several years ago, at an AGU meeting, S Korea had been very keen to join. Dr Soh offered to contact Korean scientists whom he knew to establish the current situation [ Action Dr Soh ].
8. Taiwan. Dr Soh also mentioned that Taiwan had made progress in joining international programmes recently and he undertook to approach some Taiwanese scientists too to gauge the interest in joining InterMARGINS [ Action Dr Soh ].
9. Portugal. Dr Morris wondered whether Portugal should also be approached. The Chairman indicated that marine geoscientists comprised a small community in Portugal but he would ask nevertheless [ Action Chairman ].
10. Canada. Dr Haq then turned to the question of Canadian membership. Dr Louden replied that the nature of the Canadian system made it very difficult to obtain money for subscriptions whereas it was possible to seek funds for a one-off purpose such as a workshop. The InterRidge subscription was funded through the Canadian ODP Office. Nevertheless he has happy to try and find funds but he was not sure how this could be achieved [ Action Dr Louden ]. The Chairman pointed out that Associate Membership cost only $5000 per annum. Dr Louden re-emphasised the problem. For example, the Geological Survey of Canada might have had funds in the past but now it was much more constrained. He stated that marine activities did not have a good proponent in Ottawa and suffered as a result. The Chairman pointed out that InterMARGINS was not solely a marine programme; it aimed to include relevant land-based work as well. Dr Louden concluded by saying that the NEPTUNE project, which involved studying the continental margin and a ridge crest, had a similar remit; he might write to the NEPTUNE Group as well [ Action Dr Louden ].
11. New Zealand. Dr Morris enquired whether New Zealand was interested in joining InterMARGINS. Dr Henrys replied that the New Zealand economy was very tight; they had a similar situation to Canada's and it was hard to find funds for international subscriptions. He enquired what additional benefits of international collaboration would accrue, over and above those that were already available to non-members of InterMARGINS.
12. Ireland. Dr O'Reilly responded to a query about potential Irish membership by saying the situation was similar to that in Canada and New Zealand in that funds really existed only for projects. For example, project funds were available through the National Seabed Survey and through oil companies but there was no pot to go to for an InterMARGINS subscription. He said that he might ask the Petroleum Affairs Division, whose long-term strategy is to collaborate more at the international level, for an Associate Member subscription [ Action Dr O'Reilly ]. Dr Morris enquired whether it would be helpful to mention links with IODP. Dr O'Reilly said it would help to have a formal invitation to join from the InterMARGINS Office [ Action Chairman ].
13. Australia. Dr Karner suggested that Jock Keene, in the Australia IODP Office, should be approached regarding potential Australian membership. It might also help to write to Drs Mueller and Symonds [ Action Chairman ].
14. Dr Haq ended the discussion with a suggestion that the next Newsletter should say that new members of InterMARGINS were being sought [ Action Chairman ].

6. Proposal for an InterMARGINS Workshop (July 2004).

    The Chairman introduced a presentation by Garry Karner about the first InterMARGINS-sponsored Workshop. Following a request for ideas for InterMARGINS workshops made at the last Steering Committee meeting in April, 2003 in Nice several ideas had been put forward. The most widely favoured proposal was made by Luis Pinheiro for a workshop on rifting processes at which modellers and observationalists could interact. Subsequently Dr Karner had volunteered to organise such a workshop. Dr Karner then described the current status of plans for the workshop. He compared it in format and objectives to a US MARGINS workshop on subduction systems that had been held in Ann Arbor. The detailed objectives were fivefold. Maximize information exchange and to foster collaboration within the modelling community and across discipline boundaries, Summarize the latest developments in extensional basin and lithospheric deformation concepts, key results (both observational and modelling), and modelling codes developed over the last few years, Benchmark basin and lithospheric codes in terms of temperature structure, strain rates, subsidence/uplift patterns in space and time, Identify and generate a set of fundamental lithospheric extension observations (geological, onshore and marine geophysical, petrophysical, and petrological data) for constraining and testing theoretical and conceptual models, Initiate an active web site for preservation and dissemination of data and modelling code upgrades (for teaching purposes). The site will be created and maintained by the U.S. MARGINS Office, consistent with other MARGINS-supported workshops, with help from Karner.

    The outputs would be a book containing the workshop presentations and discussions (as had been published after previous MARGINS Theoretical Institutes) and a web site on which numerical modelling codes could be accessed.

    The Workshop would take place near St Moritz in Switzerland from 11-16 July 2004. Numbers would be limited to about 40 people by invitation. The workshop would last 5.5 days including 2 days of field trips led by Prof. Gianreto Manatschal to the Tethyan margins exposed in the Alps, 1.5 days of code benchmarking and 2 days of presentations of observational and laboratory results that constrain the models. It was planned to advertise the workshop principally by means of an advertisement in EOS early in 2004.

    Dr Karner explained that the organisers hoped to be able to cover the cost of attending the workshop almost entirely. Funding was being sought on a regional basis. Already, almost 60% of the funding had been obtained from a variety of sources such as the European Science Foundation and the Natural Environment Research Council (UK), for Europe and InterMARGINS, for Australasia. The US National Science Foundation was being approached by the US MARGINS Office for funds to cover North American scientists.

    The Chairman remarked that the organisers should take care to keep within budget. He said that InterMARGINS could not undertake to underwrite any overrun of the costs. Dr Karner replied that his previous experience with US MARGINS workshops indicated that it was possible to keep within budget.

    Dr Haq asked whether other sources of funds can also be identified. Dr Louden responded that he was willing to seek funds in Canada (for Canadian attendees) [ Action Dr Louden ]. Dr Haq also pointed out that because the workshop was much earlier than the 20-28 August IGC Congress in Florence, Italy it would not be possible for attendees to combine the two trips. Dr Karner explained that this had been done deliberately. The organisers did not envisage that many people would wish to attend both events and even if the two events had been consecutive their combined length might well be too long for many people to accommodate in their schedules.

    Dr Karner also pointed out that a 3-day workshop, GeoMod 2004, with superficially similar objectives and planned to take place in Switzerland in early June 2004, was in fact much more broadly based in its objectives; consequently the two workshops were more complementary than in competition.

    Dr Morris enquired about the make-up of the Organising Committee and the way in which 40 attendees would be chosen from among the applicants. Dr Karner replied that the make-up of the Organising Committee had yet to be agreed. It was expected that this Committee would make the preliminary choice of attendees and pass this list to the Steering Committee for confirmation.

    Dr Soh asked what other InterMARGINS workshops were being considered in 2004. He said he would like to see a joint workshop with IODP, for example. The Chairman recalled that at the last Steering Committee Professor Jin had asked for help in advertising a workshop on rifted margins of the West Pacific to be held in China. Although he had had no further correspondence on this subject Dr Louden had offered to take up the matter with Prof. Jin when he made a private visit to Hangzhou the following week. The Committee welcomed this offer and agreed that Dr Louden should attempt to make contact with Prof. Jin. The Chairman said he would email Prof. Jin and mention that Dr Louden's visit had the approval of the Committee [ Action Chairman ].

7. InterMARGINS Office report

The Chairman reported on activities within the InterMARGINS Office during the past 6 months. The principal activities had been;

1. Finalising the new Constitution and agreeing a new Programme Plan. These had now been posted on the InterMARGINS web site.
2. The employment of an Information Assistant/ Webmaster for the InterMARGINS web site. David Geddes had been employed since mid-August and had already made a big impact on the design and appearance of the web site. For example, a table of all margins-related cruises in 2003 had been assembled and 'country pages' had been started with the pages for the UK and the USA recently completed. The Chairman asked members to check information on the web site relevant to their country or colleagues and to inform him of any errors or omissions [ Action all ].
3. Newsletter No. 3, the first to run to 12 pages, had just been published.
4. Two presentations had been made to international gatherings. First, Kiyoshi Suyehiro, on behalf of the Chairman, had made a presentation on InterMARGINS to IODP's Science Planning Committee in Sapporo, Japan during their 15-19 September meeting. Second, the Chairman had travelled to Amsterdam, The Netherlands in November to make a presentation to the principal Investigators of the 14 programmes funded within the ESF's Euromargins/Eurocores Programme.
5. The Chairman reported that the InterMARGINS email circulation list continued to grow, albeit rather slowly.
6. Finally, the Chairman reminded the Committee that the InterMARGINS Office was due to rotate to another site at the end of 2004. The choice lay between the three other Principal Member countries, Japan, Norway and the USA. The Chairman remarked that it might be timely to move away from the previous European/North American bias within InterMARGINS and to seek offers from Japan. Dr Soh agreed to consult among his Japanese colleagues [ Action Dr Soh ].

8. Financial statement

The Chairman presented a summary financial statement for calendar year 2003 and a financial plan for 2004. It had not been possible to present a formal statement of the accounts for 2003 because the Finance Officer in the School of Ocean and Earth Science had recently resigned and his replacement was not yet in post. Nevertheless it was clear that a healthy surplus had resulted over the year in spite of the increased expenditure on salary, office equipment and sponsorship. In 2004 it was expected that, even accounting for the new subscription from Norway, there would be a small decrease in the end of year balance, depending on the eventual contribution to the workshop costs, but the general situation remained healthy.

9. National reports

1. Japan. Dr Soh pointed out that an up to date report on activities in Japan had already been published in the latest Newsletter. He emphasised that the system of operating the Japanese research fleet had changed. Ships previously run by the Ocean Research Institute had now been put under the control of JAMSTEC, which was also responsible for the InterMARGINS Japan Office. In future research would be concentrated on a small number of areas worldwide (see map in Newsletter No. 3). Japanese scientists were keen on international collaboration. Proposals had to submitted by 1st October each year. Dr Soh concluded by saying that he thought the number of margins-related cruises in Japan was decreasing.
   
   Dr Karner asked whether the Japanese had plans to work in the Red Sea. Dr Soh replied in the affirmative saying that mostly microbiologists and hydrogeologists were involved in investigations of the brine deeps.

2. Norway. Dr Faleide reported on recent activities in Norway, which had involved Norwegian scientists working mainly in the North Atlantic. They were involved in 6 of the 14 funded Euromargins projects and had participated in two cruises in 2003 to the East Greenland and Norwegian margins. The results from these cruises would be used as input or constraints to models of margin formation and evolution that were being developed in by various groups within Euromargins. A new licensing round was due off Norway and this had led to close collaboration with some oil companies. Norwegian scientists were working in the Arctic, particularly the western and northern margins of the Barents Sea, and in the latter area with Russian scientists. There had also been some activity in the South Atlantic jointly between the Passive Margin Research Group at the University of Oslo and Statoil. A new joint Norwegian-Australian project focussing on the Western Australian margin has just started.

3. United Kingdom. The Chairman reported on recent developments within the Ocean Margin LINK Programme. The principal event had been the funding in September of three more 3-year projects, one of which involved a major cruise in the Black Sea. Further details of these projects are available in Newsletter No. 3.

4. USA. Dr Morris reported at some length on recent activities in the US MARGINS program. A major event had been the transfer of the MARGINS Office from Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory (LDEO) to Washington University, St Louis on 1st October. She had succeeded Dr Karner as Chairman of the Program. She had already been joined by Laura Kyro, who was responsible for informal education and the graphics design of the MARGINS web site. Soon Dr Paul Wyer would join from Oxford, UK to assist the Office team. The Office was currently concerned with a 5-year program review, the implementation and integration of the Science Plan and, a new emphasis, education and outreach.

   There were several important issues in the area of Rifting Continental Lithosphere. Progress in carrying out funded research the northern Red Sea had come up against permissioning problems and a trip was planned to Cairo in February with staff from the NSF, International Programs Office, to try and negotiate a solution. Marine mammals remained a sensitive issue for seismic work in the Gulf of California.

   MARGINS was progressing with database development. A proposal with LDEO (Bill Ryan, Suzanne Carbotte), University of Texas, Galveston (Tom Shipley) and Texas A&M (Ocean Drilling Program) had been funded. The initial focus was going to be on collecting metadata, ship navigation (tracks), sensor systems and the types of data recorded. The new database was going to be integrated with existing databases including some set up within the US RIDGE Program.

   MARGINS publications continued to be printed. The proceedings of the workshop on 'Rheology and Deformation of the Lithosphere at Continental Margins' were now available from Columbia University Press and 'Inside the Subduction Factory' was now available through the American Geophysical Union.

   Dr Morris reported that a fully updated and complete Science Plan was now available from the MARGINS web site and that a hard copy version would be available soon.

   Three Postdocs had been funded by NSF following the Spring 2003 panel meeting.

   Dr Morris announced that MARGINS intended to award its first prize for the most Outstanding Student Presentation at the Fall AGU meeting.

   She mentioned MARGINS' rapid response to the eruption of the volcano Anatahan in May 2003. A research ship doing MARGINS work had been in the vicinity and had been able to assist in rapidly setting up land stations, and in collecting samples for analytical work, much of it presented at AGU.

   Finally, Dr Morris said that MARGINS planned several more workshops. There was involvement in the IRIS-Earthscope and InterMARGINS Workshops to be held in summer 2004 and MARGINS expected to hold a Theoretical and Experimental Institute on Source-to-Sink processes in spring 2005.

   Dr Haq responded by elaborating on the 5-year review of MARGINS. Most major NSF-funded programs undergo such a 5-yearly review. The review will be carried out by a committee of scientists from outside the MARGINS community in early 2004. Not only would the research be appraised but there were also some quality control and program management issues too.

   Dr Soh enquired what proportion of funds were spent on outreach, cruises etc. Dr Morris explained the MARGINS Office provided only a supporting role for MARGINS research projects. The NSF paid the cruise costs directly and this consumed about 30% of the MGG budget. Dr Soh replied that there was no budget in Japan for promoting InterMARGINS research. Dr Haq saw this as an opportunity for collaborative research.

5. Canada. Dr Louden gave the Committee a résumé of recent activity in Canada. He pointed out that Canada was favoured with both rifted (E coast) and subduction zone (W coast) margins. In 2003 there had a been a cruise to the Davis Strait which had involved Ifremer. Wide-angle seismic data had been recorded along an earlier TGS Nopec multichannel seismic (MCS) profile. There is a large group in the Geological Survey which studies slope stability and conducts yearly cruises to the Nova Scotia margin where they had discovered bottom simulating reflections. An active numerical modelling group, led by Chris Beaumont, had investigated the influence of salt on continental rifting. On the west coast, offshore Vancouver, a joint project with Japan had failed to obtain permission to operate because of problems with marine mammals. Dr Louden said that this programme may yet go ahead with another partner.

   Finally, Dr Louden drew attention to difficulties he had had accessing industry data which he thought might be a more general problem for InterMARGINS to consider either as a workshop or by setting up a working group. He stated that because laws are out of date data can be, and has been, lost.

6. Ireland. Dr O'Reilly noted that an up to date report on activities in Ireland had already been published in the latest Newsletter. He added that a Japanese postdoc had recently been recruited to work on the Cosmogrid project and that a PhD student was doing work on numerical modelling of large-scale Earth structures relevant to the planned InterMARGINS Workshop.

7. New Zealand. Dr Henrys reported on what had been happening in New Zealand. He showed a new topographic/bathymetric map of New Zealand and its offshore waters (see http://www.gns.cri.nz/store/publications/maps.html for map entitled 'The New Zealand continent 1:7500 000'). The main focus of activity had been to acquire data relevant to defining the country's EEZ and UNCLOS claim. He noted that the EEZ was very large, equivalent to about 1.7 times the area of the Mediterranean Sea. Therefore New Zealand scientists were very interested to know about research ships working in New Zealand's waters with they would be very pleased to collaborate. Other projects were focused on the Ross Sea off Antarctica.

   In contrast to the comments made by Dr Louden, Dr Henrys noted that New Zealand had very good regulatory legislation for MCS profiles under the statutory jurisdiction of the Ministry of Economic Development. All data had to be lodged with the government and eventually were put on open file five years after a license had been relinquished. The Institute of Geological and Nuclear Sciences maintains the Petroleum Report Library for the Ministry of Economic Development.

   Dr Henrys said that there had been some concern in New Zealand surrounding seismic acquisition and its effect on marine mammals. He drew the Committee's attention to a recent informative reports* published by Curtin University of Technology, Perth, Western Australia and SCAR on this subject.

   * McCauley, R.D., Fewtrell, J., Duncan, A.J., Jenner, C., Jenner, M-N., Penrose, J.D., Prince, R.I.T., Adhitya, A., Murdoch, J., McCabe, K.,  2000, Marine seismic surveys: analysis and propagation of air-gun signals; and effects of exposure on humpback whales, sea turtles, fishes and squid, Prepared for the Australian Petroleum Exploration and Production Association by the Centre for Marine Science and Technology, Curtin University, CMST R99-15. http://www.curtin.edu.au/curtin/centre/cmst/publicat/index.html (11 Mb compressed).

   SCAR Ad Hoc Group on Marine Acoustic Technology on the Antarctic Environment, 2002. Impacts of Marine Acoustic Technology on the Antarctic Environment. http://www.geoscience.scar.org/geophysics/

10. Any other business

There was no other business other than the date of the next meeting.

11. Date of the next meeting

It was agreed to hold the Ninth Meeting of the Steering Committee during the First EGU General Assembly in Nice, France from 25-30 April 2004.

12. Closure of the meeting

The Chairman thanked all those present for attending and closed the meeting at 16:17.