1. Introduction.

1.1 The meeting was opened by the Chairman, Bob Whitmarsh, at 13.05. He welcomed all those present and especially those who had not attended a previous Steering Committee meeting.

1.2 Those present, from 8 countries, were Warner Brückmann (Germany), Laurent Gernigon (Ireland), Bilal Haq, Julie Morris, Paul Wyer (USA, Principal Member country), Stuart Henrys (New Zealand), Eiichi Kikawa, Masa Kinoshita, Narumi Takahashi, Wonn Soh (Japan, Principal Member country), Sang-Mook Lee (S. Korea) and Char-Shine Liu (Chinese Taipei). Apologies were received from Jan-Inge Faleide and Jürgen Mienert (Norway, Principal Member country), Chris Franklin and Tony Watts (UK, Principal Member country), Eulalia Gracia (Spain), Mingbi Li (PRC, Associate Member country), Keith Louden (Canada), Brian O'Reilly (Ireland), Luis Pinheiro (Portugal) and Phil Symonds and Dietmar Müller (Australia).

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 28th April 2004, in Nice, France, during the First Congress of the European Geoscience Union, were circulated and accepted. There were no comments on the Minutes.

4. Matters Arising.

4.1 Chairman's actions. These actions all related to increasing the membership of InterMARGINS and were covered in a later Agenda item.

4.2 The Chairman noted that in Section 5 Dr Soh and Dr Mingbi Li had offered to contribute some information to the web site regarding research projects in Japan and China, respectively; he said that this information was still awaited and would provide valuable additions to the web site [Action Drs Soh and Mingbi Li]. Section 5.2 referred to the impending opening of the NORMAR web site of the Norwegian national margins programme. Apparently, although a lot of material had been prepared, the web site was not yet fully functional. The Chairman noted the reference to Euromargins in Section 7.1 and said that information on recent activities in the Euromargins programme would be given later in the meeting. Section 10.4 referred to a proposal from Dr Mingbi Li to hold a workshop in China about the western Pacific margin. It had been pointed out that the proposed date of November 2004 would be very difficult for InterMARGINS, both financially and logistically, and the Chairman was awaiting further suggestions from Dr Li about how InterMARGINS could assist with the sponsorship of such a workshop [Action Dr Mingbi Li]. Finally the Chairman said that he was still waiting to hear from Dr Pecher who had promised to write a article for the Newsletter about plans being formed in New Zealand to work in the Havre Trough. Dr Henrys said that he would refer to these plans later in his report.

5. Membership Status.

The Chairman reported that he had continued to seek new members of InterMARGINS as a top priority during the last 8 months. Although he had not been successful he said that he had had some more or less positive responses from several countries who might join in the coming months.

5.1 Australia. The Chairman informed the Committee that he had been told that finding a subscription for InterMARGINS was contingent on the funding of a major proposal called AEON put up by Dr Muller. Unfortunately the proposal had not been successful. Dr Muller, who was already involved in InterRidge, had suggested that further contact be continued with Dr Symonds in Geoscience Australia which had a larger margins programme. Dr Symonds was very supportive of InterMARGINS and had responded positively.

5.2 Canada. The Chairman reported that Dr Louden, who had attended the Steering Committee meeting a year ago, had approached Prof. Chris Barnes, Director of the Neptune Project in Canada, with a request to find an InterMARGINS subscription. The response had been that the rules did not allow funds in a research grant to be used in this way. There appeared to be an impasse at present in finding the Canadian subscription and the Chairman regretted that he was not optimistic that a solution would be found in the near future.

5.3 France. The Chairman reported that there had been no change in the situation since April 2004. He had contacted Jean Mascle, Director of the French national margins programme (GDRMarges) which is directed by a Steering Committee the majority of whose members come from industry. They were unsympathetic to a French group joining InterMARGINS and the situation was unlikely to change in the near future.

5.4 Germany. Dr Brückmann noted that Geomar had recently merged with another institution and there was a new keenness to foster international collaboration; for example, the new Leibniz Institute was already hosting the InterRidge Office. Dr Brückmann said that when he had approached his Director he had been told that it was likely that the Leibniz Institute would join InterMARGINS as an Associate Member. There had been a delay because the proposal had not been submitted in writing, only by email, but it was almost certain that a decision to join would be made in January 2005. Dr Brückmann said he would inform the Chairman as soon as he had more news [Action Dr Brückmann]. The Chairman welcomed this news and noted that this would be the first addition to the membership for a year.

5.5 Ireland. The Chairman reported that earlier in the year he had written a formal letter of invitation for a Irish institution to join InterMARGINS to Fiona Fitzpatrick of the Marine Institute. He had been advised that really the letter should have been sent to the Irish Petroleum Affairs Division (PAD) who were more likely to be able pay the InterMARGINS subscription. However when he had contacted Dr O'Reilly in November it turned out that the letter had not arrived in the PAD. Dr O'Reilly was chasing the situation and feedback from him was awaited [Action Dr O'Reilly]. The Chairman summarised by saying that although the approach had been frustratingly slow he had not given up hoping that eventually Ireland might join InterMARGINS.

5.6 Portugal. The Chairman said that there had been no further developments since the last Steering Committee meeting and he stated that he was not very optimistic at present that Portugal would join InterMARGINS.

5.7 Spain. The Chairman said that he was optimistic about membership of a Spanish institution but a situation had arisen that had delayed communications. Last April, Montse Torne had attended the Steering Committee and had said she was hopeful that, once the subscription had been identified as a line item in the planned budget for 2005, the Spanish funding agency CSIC could join in January 2005. However, since April, Dr Torne had been promoted to Vice-President of CSIC, a very senior position, and because of her new job and workload it had been difficult to make further contact. Dr Gracia had tried to discuss the situation with Dr Torne but had recently recommended that the Chairman make a direct approach [Action Chairman].

5.8 General Discussion.

6. InterMARGINS Workshop in Summer 2004.

The Chairman described the workshop on rifted margins which was held in Pontresina, Switzerland from 10-16 July and attended by 46 people from 13 countries. He noted the range of formal presentations, mini-presentations, poster sessions, discussions and field trips, which presented invaluable opportunities for informal discussion. He thanked the convenors Garry Karner, Gianreto Manatschal and Luis Pinheiro who had put so much effort into the organisation, the US MARGINS Office, principally Laura Kyro, which had greatly assisted with the administrative workload and the other sponsors (US National Science Foundation, UK Natural Environment Research Council and the European Science Foundation). The total cost of the workshop was almost $76,000. Further information about the workshop could be found in Newsletter No.5 and on the US MARGINS web site (with a link from the InterMARGINS web site) which also contains posters and abstracts of the talks. He ended by informing the Committee that a book of the workshop was planned to be published by Columbia University Press in early 2006 and was being edited by the three convenors.

7. InterMARGINS Office Report.

7.1 Web Site. The Chairman began by illustrating the increased usage of the web site. In April there had been 26 visits per day whereas in the last complete month (November 2004) this had increased to 99 visits. He said that he thought the increase had been mostly due to the usefulness of the new Global Information pages, added during the summer, which he illustrated with overheads. He noted that the increase was largely due to the efforts of the webmaster, David Geddes. He also informed the Committee that further pages were being constructed to list major items of marine capital equipment, including ships, that were available for barter, swap or charter, in accordance with the InterMARGINS Science Plan. He said he expected these pages to be accessible in January 2005. Dr Soh affirmed that this sort of web site was very useful for the scientific community. He also mentioned that he had InterRidge colleagues who were envious of the information available on the InterMARGINS web site. Dr Brückmann concurred and said that his colleague Colin Devey, Chairman of InterRidge had said that the InterMARGINS web site was really something to strive towards. Dr Morris, while agreeing with previous speakers, asked what would happen when the InterMARGINS Office transferred to Japan. The Chairman responded by saying that he had already made arrangements to extend Mr Geddes contract of employment in Southampton for 3 months until the end of the March 2005 to assist with the handover of the web site and all that that entailed and to ensure a smooth transition. Discussions had already taken place in San Francisco with the staff of the new office about the handover.

7.2 Newsletter. The Chairman noted that the Newsletter seemed to increase in size with every issue and Newsletter No.5 (December 2004) was 16 pages long. This was now leading to concerns about cost because the newsletter was now costing about $5 per copy. Although the newsletter can be downloaded from the web site there was still a need for professionally printed paper copies either to hand to people at meetings, to give to libraries or to satisfy demand in countries where printing in colour was not easily available.

7.3 International Year of the Planet Earth (IYPE). The Chairman informed the Committee that IYPE was a new project designed to take place in the period 2005-2007; it was sponsored by the International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS) under the auspices of the United Nations and had a budget of $20 million, half of which was available for outreach and half for scientific research. The Chairman reported that he had been approached in late August by Prof. John Chen (Beijing University, China) to join a team that was writing text for a Science Plan brochure in the area of OCEAN (solid earth). He said that other members of the team were Colin Devey (Chairman InterRidge), Chuck Fisher (Chairman US RIDGE 2000) and Jian Lin (Woods Hole, USA). The Chairman noted that he had asked the Steering Committee for input and that some text had been produced in a very short period of time and was now being reviewed. Existing brochures in other subject areas can be inspected on the IYPE web site (here). Dr Soh asked what sort of detail was contained in the text; the Chairman replied that it was written only in very general terms. Dr Henrys commented that, compared to, for example, the plans for the International Polar Year, the plans for IYPE seemed vague, at least regarding how proposals were to be submitted and funds disbursed.

7.4 Relationship with SCOR. The Chairman reported that he had been approached in October by Ed Urban, the Executive Director of SCOR (Scientific Committee on Oceanic Research), to enquire whether InterMARGINS was interested in being affiliated with SCOR, as was InterRidge. The Chairman reported that, after investigating the matter, he had concluded that InterMARGINS would not benefit from such an affiliation and that most affiliated bodies were significantly larger and also concerned much more with the water column, physical oceanography and climate change than the solid Earth. Dr Soh interjected that he thought that affiliation to SCOR might be important. Dr Brückmann said that he thought that it would be useful to be affiliated to SCOR under the United Nations umbrella; in practical terms it might not change anything but it would give InterMARGINS more visibility. Dr Haq confirmed that he too saw no harm in being affiliated to SCOR. Dr Morris asked whether there was any hidden cost, not necessarily financial, to being affiliated. The Chairman replied that there might be a requirement to attend one meeting a year. Dr Soh pointed out that if InterMARGINS was affiliated to SCOR that might help him to raise travel money in Japan to attend SCOR and other meetings. Dr Morris pointed out that affiliation to SCOR, with its UN connection, might also help in margins research activities off some countries. The Chairman concluded by saying that he would take the Committee's advice and go back to SCOR with a request that InterMARGINS be affiliated [Action Chairman].

7.5 Move of the Office to Japan. Dr Soh reported that the InterMARGINS Office would move to IFREE/JAMSTEC, which is situated close to Tokyo, in 2005. He would take on the role of Chairman, Narumi Takahashi would be the General Secretary and Eiichi Kikawa would be the Executive Advisor. The handover would take place between January and March 2005 but no funds would be available until April at the start of the Japanese financial year. Dr Haq asked whether Prof. Whitmarsh would continue to Chair InterMARGINS during the transition period. The Chairman confirmed that he agreed to continue as the formal Chairman until the end of March 2005 but said that he expected the Japanese Office to begin to make the arrangements for the next Steering Committee meeting, to seek the renewal of membership subscriptions payable in January 2005, to set up an InterMARGINS account and to begin to plan the next Newsletter which was due to be published around June 2005 [Action Dr Soh]. He affirmed that the web site would also be maintained in Southampton until late March.

8. Finance.

8.1 The Chairman reported on the status of InterMARGINS funds and showed a statement of income and expenditure for Calendar Year 2004. He said that almost all the income from subscriptions of $60,000 had been spent. The major items of expenditure had been the Chairman's Honorarium, the two Newsletters, the webmaster's salary, the cost of the Fall AGU Steering Committee meeting and the Workshop in Switzerland. It was recently realised that an amount of around £31,800 should have appeared as carried forward from previous years but the exact sum was still being determined by finance staff in the University of Southampton. An accounting problem had arisen because the type of account had been changed in 2002 and the carry forward had not been done correctly at that time. In answer to a question the Chairman confirmed that when the Office transfers to Japan the balance of unspent funds will be transferred too. Together with subscriptions yet to be paid the InterMARGINS Office should be able to start work with over $100,000.

8.2 Dr Henrys asked about the proportion of the cost of the Workshop paid by InterMARGINS. The Chairman replied that about $30k out of a total of $75k had been paid by InterMARGINS and that, pro rata, if InterMARGINS was successful in obtaining sponsorship at the same level it could afford to run a Workshop every year. Dr Henrys continued by asking what the cost of the Office would be in JAMSTEC. Dr Soh replied that it was unclear at present and it depended on the overhead that JAMSTEC would charge. He said that he would present detailed costings for the new office at the next Steering Committee meeting [Action Dr Soh].

9. Sponsorship.

The Chairman introduced the item by reminding the Steering Committee that it had decided in Nice in April 2002 to sponsor travel to meetings and conferences for speakers and students, to assist scientists from developing countries with their travel for working visits to labs and to award prizes for posters on display at conferences. However the take up of sponsorship funds had been very small and a recent request had been tuned down as unsuitable. Referring to the latter event, Dr Morris wondered whether it was better to treat applications on a case-by-case basis or to set up application deadlines. The Chairman replied that he preferred to remain flexible and to be able to respond to requests at short notice. He wondered whether InterMARGINS should advertise its willingness to provide sponsorship more widely. Dr Haq stated that he thought it was not InterMARGINS place to behave as a funding agency, on the other hand, he said that there were occasions when InterMARGINS should provide sponsorship. He considered that the Chairman should have the authority to make quick decisions about sponsorship; the test was whether the funds would be spent for the common good of margins science. Dr Brückmann added that he thought sponsorship should also be used to raise the profile of InterMARGINS, as the workshop had done in the summer and the book of the workshop would do, and not be spent purely on travel or logistics. Dr Morris concurred with the above sentiments and was happy to leave decisions to the discretion of the Chairman. The Chairman finished by saying that he had raised the subject because it had not been discussed for a while but that he was disappointed that so few worthy applicants for sponsorship had appeared and he encouraged those present to spread the word and encourage suitable applications for sponsorship [Action All].

10. Future Plans.

The Chairman opened the discussion by reminding the Committee that InterMARGINS' aim was, according to the Constitution, to progress scientific and logistical co-ordination in margins research particularly at the scale of between countries where the projects cannot be carried out by individual institutions or a small number of institutions and that the funds accumulated from subscriptions were available to help meet these objectives. He suggested a list of possible activities on which funds could be spent, not all of which would require significant expenditure. They included workshops, summer schools (aimed at postgraduate students), conference sessions, travel to conferences for speakers and/or students, publications and newsletters, expansion of the web site, databases, prioritising research areas, collaboration with international bodies and to enable the exchange of information about margins research worldwide. The Chairman invited discussion.

10.1 Dr Brückmann suggested that a workshop should be set up to discuss the Costa Rica margin. He said that a small group had already met during the AGU meeting. German and other European scientists had been working off Costa Rica for some 8 years as had US MARGINS scientists in the context of investigating the Subduction Factory/Seismogenic Zone. More German cruises were planned in 2005. He was also working with Kevin Brown (Scripps Institution of Oceanography) to locate sites for Alvin dives. He continued that he and his colleagues proposed to hold a workshop with European, US and Japanese scientists. In answer to a question from Dr Morris, Dr Brückmann confirmed that the aim of the workshop would be to generate new plans to be developed to enable the Costa Rica trench to be used not only as a test bed for new instrumentation but to allow the exchange of information about past and future activities. He expected that support would be sought from InterMARGINS and JOI because there was an IODP proposal for a 'seismogenic' borehole in the area. The Chairman interposed that to gain InterMARGINS support the workshop proposal would have to be presented as studying a generic problem; Dr Brückmann confirmed that Costa Rica met this criterion because it was a good example of both a seismogenic zone and an 'erosive' convergent margin. The Chairman also noted that the proposal was coming from scientists in developed countries so that the support it might attract from InterMARGINS might not be all that great. Dr Haq suggested that the developed countries could pay for their own scientists whereas InterMARGINS might support scientists from, for example, Costa Rica and Nicaragua and elsewhere in a similar way as had been done at the Pontresina workshop. He continued that this would be a wonderful test of InterMARGINS wider objective of getting people together to share data on an international scale. Dr Morris concurred, so long as the benefit to InterMARGINS was proportionate to what it contributed. Dr Henrys interjected that the InterMARGINS funds could either be ring-fenced or that InterMARGINS could have oversight of their expenditure by the Chairman being a member of the Organising Committee. Dr Haq said that funding was not the main issue but that the principal point was that InterMARGINS should sponsor such a workshop so long as it brought together people on an international scale to discuss, share and exchange data. In answer to a question Dr Brückmann stated that a proposal for the workshop to be held in September 2005 would be written as soon as possible; the title had yet to be determined [Action Dr Brückmann].

10.2 Dr Soh began a discussion of gas hydrates as a possible subject for a workshop. He pointed out that gas hydrates usually occurred in continental margin areas, whether subduction zones or rifted margins. Dr Haq responded that a lot of countries are spending huge sums of money on gas hydrate research and that workshops on, or related to, this subject are held very frequently. So, he continued, if InterMARGINS organises such a workshop it has to be different from what has gone before and tackle new issues of global importance (aside from whether gas hydrates might prove to be a valuable resource which was not a scientific question) as well as being truly international. The Chairman concurred with this view but did not want to discourage Dr Soh from investigating his proposal further [Action Dr Soh].

10.3 Dr Sang-Mook Lee suggested that a workshop on long-term observations by seafloor observatories might be a suitable subject for a workshop. In discussion it was noted that there would be a lot of technical issues regarding the design and installation of such observatories. Dr Morris pointed out that observatories are hugely expensive and currently many countries are having internal discussions about how to fund them. She said she was concerned that InterMARGINS could not make a significant contribution unless it could identify some very specific topic. She thought that a lot of relatively high-level (intergovernmental) discussion was going on already. Dr Sang-Mook Lee reaffirmed that he still thought it might be useful to have a discussion among scientists to discuss what science could be achieved while avoiding the technical and funding issues. Dr Haq replied that this had already been done on numerous occasions, perhaps not always internationally, and many reports had been written on the subject.

10.4 Dr Henrys suggested that InterMARGINS should solicit proposals from the wider community perhaps via the Newsletter. Dr Haq responded by saying that we needed to bring new ideas to the table which had not been covered before and which benefit the international community. Finally Dr Morris suggested that in spite of the varied aspects of margins research conducted by different countries in different geographical areas there were underlying processes that affected all continental margins and that this should provide a fertile area for ideas for workshops.

10.5 The Chairman thanked the Committee for their contributions and concluded by encouraging all those present to write, or find authors of, short proposals which could be considered at the next InterMARGINS Steering Committee meeting [Action All].

10.6 Next, the Chairman invited comments on Summer Schools. Dr Morris said she would like to see InterMARGINS doing something consistently and differently from national margins programs and Summer Schools might be one such thing on which InterMARGINS could stamp its own identity. Dr Haq said he liked this approach and drew a comparison with an annual Summer School run by InterRidge in Iceland. The Chairman commented that ideally InterMARGINS needed to find a margin exposed on land as occurs in the Alps. Dr Soh stated that he was not sure that Summer Schools were a good idea. He preferred a workshop like the one that was used to progress IODP and involved principal investigators describing the science behind their drilling projects and participants inspecting drill cores. The Chairman commented that maybe this was the sort of Workshop that IODP itself should be promoting. Next, Dr Sang-Mook Lee proposed a Summer School or Workshop on intercomparisons of interpretations of wide-angle seismic data. Dr Henrys and others pointed out that such workshops had already existed for many years under the auspices of IASPEI's Controlled Source Seismology Working Group. The proposal was considered around the table as being too technical and not related closely or specifically enough to margins research. Dr Henrys ended the discussion by saying that he thought the recent Workshop, with its mix of fieldtrips, benchmarking and lectures plus senior scientists and students, was a good model to follow. He suggested that a future workshop might identify some aspect of back-arc basins as a subject for study.

10.7 Conference Sessions. The conclusion of a short discussion was that InterMARGINS should consider equests to sponsor conference sessions or to support the travel of speakers or students to a conference on a case-by-case basis.

10.8 Dr Soh said that he supported the idea that InterMARGINS should show that it promotes science by producing a prioritised list of research topics. He said that he wished national groups of margins researchers to produce topics in order to clarify the targets of research. The Chairman pointed out that all national programs had already produced their own list of objectives and there would be a problem with the suggested approach because there would be different priorities in different countries. Dr Haq agreed with this view. Dr Morris commented that InterMARGINS was there to help collaboration between countries and not necessarily to determine which research areas were to be supported.

11. National Reports.

11.1 USA. In reporting activities within the US MARGINS Program Dr Morris referred to InterMARGINS Newsletters No.4 and 5 and the US MARGINS Newsletters, which contained lists of the funded projects, and the MARGINS web site. The web site contained the results of the Review of the Program carried out by/for NSF and 'nuggets' which were a compilation of all the latest research. She continued that all the focus sites and initiatives were now funded and the database of margins metadata was also up and running. She also referred to the new NSF permitting procedures for cruises that might have an impact on cetaceans. She expressed the view that principal investigators needed to identify and contact collaborators in coastal states and that InterMARGINS might have a role to play in this regard. She also referred to the uncertain status of the Rifted Continental Lithosphere project in the northern Red Sea. She was aware that a Euromargins supported cruise was soon to take place there (P.I., Enrico Bonatti, sailing 27th December 2004) and US MARGINS would watch the progress of that cruise with interest.

11.2 Euromargins. In the absence of a Euromargins representative the Chairman noted that Euromargins had held several workshops in 2004 which were briefly mentioned on the Euromargins web site (ESF). Dr Brückmann reported that he had attended the annual Euromargins colloquium in Barcelona in November. It had been announced that there would not be a second phase of Euromargins but a partial successor would be the HERMES Programme with funding of €20m. A preliminary meeting would be held on the island of Rhodes in 2005.

11.3 Germany. Dr Brückmann reported that a substantial national margins programme did not exist in Germany; rather, there were a number of independent large projects such as the University of Bremen's Ocean Margins project. Several discussions were going on concerning the development of new technologies for margins research and the construction of a national centre for ROVs for German marine science. Further, a duplicate of the PROD commercial seafloor drilling system was being built and would be tested in the North Sea in Spring 2005. He continued that a new research ship, the RV Maria Sibylla Merian, was being built in Poland but problems had been encountered with the thrusters and the 2005 cruise schedule was being delayed by 6 months. The RV Sonne was being upgraded. Finally, he reported that Germany was experiencing problems with its support of the IODP; the Ministry involved was not signing the agreement because the project was perceived as being too expensive. It was hoped that the shortfall could be made up with contributions from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) and from individual research institutions.

11.4 Ireland. Dr Gernigon reported that recent activity in Ireland had concentrated on the interpretation of wide-angle seismic, gravity and 2D seismic reflection profiles. Irish scientists are also involved in work connected with Ireland's UNCLOS claim. They have been working with other organisations such as GSI, GeoPro and the Irish Petroleum Affairs Division (PAD). He cited data sets collected in the Porcupine Basin and the Hatton-Rockall area (HADES) where profiles had been obtained to study the ocean-continent transition. The E-W RAPIDS 4 lines, collected in the Porcupine Basin in 2002, were soon to be published. In 2004, Tim Reston (Leibniz Institute, Germany) with scientists from University College Dublin, Dublin Institute of Advanced Studies (DIAS) and Trinity College Dublin shot wide-angle lines in the Porcupine Basin. DIAS scientists had also recorded on land in SW Ireland. The data were now being worked up in Germany. In the HADES project three new wide-angle profiles had been obtained, with 100 OBS per line to study the ocean-continent transition, plus 2D seismic reflection profiles (collected by the PAD) from Goban Spur to the SW corner of Hatton Bank. A confidential survey had also been carried out in 2004.

11.5 Japan. Dr Soh reported that there had been a lot of recent margins-related activity in Japan. He noted that 8 cruises had been carried out in 2004, four to the Nankai Trough and one each to the Izu Bonin Arc, the Japan Trench, the Ogasawara Ridge and the NW Pacific/Philippines area. He added that there had also been one cruise in collaboration with industry. He announced that more information would appear on the InterMARGINS web site later [Action Dr Soh].

11.6 New Zealand. Dr Henrys reported a variety of activities. He said that there had been some collaboration with US MARGINS. In addition two new bathymetric charts of Antarctica (Davey 20041¹ and Stagpoole² et al 2004 - available here) had been published, a collaborative UNCLOS-related cruise had been conducted on a French ship in New Caledonia, seismic reflection, gravity and magnetic profiles had been collected north of the North Island, an IODP pre-proposal for drilling to investigate subduction initiation had been submitted and in January 2004 the Ministry of Economic Development had funded hydrocarbon exploration of the Kermadec Trench with a 12-channel seismic streamer. Finally, Dr Henrys noted that the New Zealand government had begun to recognise the huge size of New Zealand's Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) which was four times the area of the Mediterranean. A proposal to survey the EEZ over the next 20 years had been accepted in principle. He said that the plan was to work on a grid of lines some which would extend into deeper water. New Zealand scientists wished to collaborate with operators of OBS.

11.7 South Korea. Dr Sang-Mook Lee reported that in 2005 some work on gas hydrates would be carried out to the east of Korea. He also commented that there was controversy about the nature of the crust offshore eastern Korea; the eastern margin was characterised by a linear escarpment and very thick sediments. He said that a preliminary interpretation of two relatively short OBS profiles suggests the presence of oceanic crust and even possibly a volcanic margin structure but personally he favoured a region of thinned continental crust. He continued that there were not many deep seismic reflection profiles in the area and he hoped that if Korea joined InterMARGINS it might be possible to obtain new data that would help to resolve the problem.

11.8 Chinese Taipei. Dr Char-Shine Liu began by saying that all offshore work around Taiwan was margins related. He said that the tectonics of the region was very complex with subduction, collision and even rifting all taking place although subduction predominated. Research was progressing in six areas. First, a pool of OBS was being constructed. Short period OBS (Ifremer's MicroOBS ) were being built for the National Taiwan Ocean University in collaboration with Ifremer and broadband OBS were being constructed for the Institute of Earth Sciences, Academia Sinica, in collaboration with Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Second, he reported that seismogenesis was being studied. The objective was to set up an earthquake monitoring network with offshore and onshore stations with a view to mitigating the hazards posed by earthquakes. Third, there was a plan to study subduction-collision processes off eastern Taiwan, as expressed by high seismicity, using Taiwanese and French, and possibly Japanese, OBS. A parallel objective was to image the termination of the subducting slab of the Philippine Sea Plate under northern Taiwan as well. Fourth, a drilling project was conducted on land that drilled through the Cherlungpu Fault zone. The 1999 Chi-Chi earthquake occurred along this fault which may extend offshore southward. A detailed investigation and possibly an IODP drilling proposal would be proposed to study the offshore section of this fault system. Fifth, Dr Liu continued that a major geodynamics project (TIGER) with US scientists, that was already funded by NSF, would take place in 2006-2007. It would involve onshore/offshore active and passive seismic experiments. Several onshore and offshore transects were already designed that would be carried out with the Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory's new multichannel profiling ship in 2007. Finally, he reported that discussions were beginning with the People's Republic of China on a couple of major transects that would extend from the Philippine Sea across the Taiwan island and Taiwan Strait to the Chinese mainland in conjunction with the TAIGER transects. It was hoped that Japanese colleagues would also be involved.

12. Any Other Business.

Dr Haq thanked the Chairman for his leadership over the last three years and for his efforts in making InterMARGINS grow to the point where the web site and the Newsletters were truly informative and very useful additions to the margins research community. These remarks were supported in the usual way by those present.

13. Date of the Next Meeting.

The Chairman noted that the next Steering Committee meeting would be organised by the new Chairman of InterMARGINS, Dr Wonn Soh, who had agreed to find a venue in Vienna, Austria during the Second Congress of the European Geoscience Union (23rd-28th April, 2005) [Action Dr Soh].

14. Closure of the meeting.

The Chairman closed the meeting around 16.30.