1. Welcome
The Chairperson thanked all those present. He mentioned the role of InterMARGINS in promoting international margins research. In addition, he gave information for absence of German and China representatives as well as permanent gust B. Haq.

2. Those present
Wonn Soh (Japan, Chair)
Masataka Kinoshita (Japan)
Tonny Watts (UK)
Geoffrey Abers (US)
Pamela Lezaeta (US)
J.I. Faleide (Norway)

Not participated
W. Bruckmann (Germay)
X. Jin (China)
B. Haq (NSF)

3. Agenda
The agenda that the chairperson proposed was adopted.

4. Membership status
The chairperson confirmed membership status. Principal member countries are UK, USA, Japan and Norway. The associate member countries are China and German. The InterMARGINS will continue promotion for participations from other countries in the future under new qualifications for participation including principal, associate and assistant memberships.

5. Workshop support program
The chairperson introduced present status of the workshop support. 06’ workshops supported by InterMARGINS were conducted as
·D.Sawyer, M.Coffin, T.J.Reston, J.M.Stock: International Workshop on Investigating Continental Breakup and Sedimentary Basin Formation with Intergrated Ocean Drilling Program. The workshop was conducted 15th ~ 18th September, 2006 at Pontresina, Switzerland, led by M. Coffin (Univ. Tokyo), D.S. Sawyer (Rice Univ), T.J. Reston (Univ Birmingham) and J.M.Stock (CALTEC).
Fifty-one scientists from six continents met in Pontresina, Switzerland, in mid-September to discuss strategies for advancing understanding of continental rifting and breakup using the new drilling platforms and associated technologies. Over four days of plenary and breakout group meetings, including a one-day field trip, observational scientists and modelers educated one another about the world's continental margins, discussed the outstanding problems related to margin initiation and development, and outlined a global mission to address these problems via drilling and monitoring, in conjunction with complementary geophysical and geological studies. As the one of products of the meeting, the participants agreed to promote IODP mission program. The IODP is poised to consider a new type of proposal, that for a mission, which is an intellectually integrated and coordinated drilling strategy originating from the scientific community that: a) addresses a significant aspect of an IODP Science Plan theme on a global basis over an extended period of IODP, and b) merits urgent promotion in order to achieve overall IODP program goals. Workshop participants reached consensus to develop a mission proposal addressing continental rifting and breakup globally that provisionally will target active rifting and breakup in the Gulf of California and Woodlark Basin, highly magmatic margins (e.g., conjugate Norwegian-East Greenland and conjugate-less Western Australian), and the hyperextended conjugate margins of Iberia-Newfoundland and the South Atlantic. Spearheaded by John Hopper (Texas A&M University, USA), the mission proposal will be developed between now and an anticipated 1 April 2007 submission by a team of observational and modeling specialists working on mission component themes. Importantly, however, the mission proposal will not exclude individual proposals on any aspect of continental rifting and breakup from being developed and submitted to the IODP by interested proponent groups. The 'Investigating Continental Breakup and Sedimentary Basin Formation' workshop, presented by IODP Management International and InterMARGINS, was held 15-18 September at the Rondo Convention Center in Pontresina, Graubunden, Switzerland. A scientific white paper on continental breakup and sedimentary basin formation is in preparation for publication in Scientific Drilling (ISSN 1816-8957), and the full workshop report is scheduled to be available in late 2006 at www.iodp.org, which is also the source of comprehensive information about the IODP. This workshop was co-supported by IODP and InterMARGINS.
·S.Kodaira, H.Sato : 12th International symposium on deep seismic profiling of the continents and their margins.
The 12th International symposium on deep seismic profiling of the continents and their margins continued the series of biennial meeting which involve specialists in the acquisition, processing and interpretation of lithospheric scale seismic profiling throughout the world. The symposium was held in 24-29th September 2006 at Shonan Village Center, Hayama, Japan. The Earthquake Research Institute (ERI), the University of Tokyo, Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC) and National Institute for Earth Science and Disaster Prevention (NIED) organized the symposium. 125 geoscientists from 24 countries attended the symposium. They contributed 59 oral presentations including 6 keynote talks and 121 posters for 14 scientific themes. In this 12th symposium, two special scientific themes focusing on structures of seismogenic zones and island arcs were allocated, since this is the first symposium held in Japan which is an island arc situated close to subduction seismogenic zones. In those special sessions, precise seismological structures of the island arcs were presented, and discussed their uniqueness and similarities by comparing with structures of the continents. Those discussions are one of the most fruitful outcomes from this symposium.
·P.Clift, W.Soh: Proposal for an InterMARGINS Workshop on Climate-Tectonic Studies in the Red River Drainage
The InterMARGINS sponsored workshop took place from 5-7 June 2006 in Kochi in Japan. It was convened by Peter Clift and Wonn Soh, and was attended by 4 invited scientists from 4 countries (India, Vietnam, UK and USA). The aim of the workshop was to explore the potential of using the Red River system as a means to understand climate-tectonic interactions in Cenozoic Asia. The Red River is selected because it derives sediment directly from the flanks of eastern Tibet. Its marine delta and fan should preserve sediment that can provide a relatively simple erosional history, which can be used to constrain the growth of the plateau. In addition, the Red River is sited on the southeastern part of the Tibetan Plateau and is believed to have once been a much larger system that was reduced through time as drainage capture transferred the original headwaters to other major rivers in Asia (e.g., Mekong, Yangtze, Salween). Since then its drainage system has been influenced by the Asian Monsoon to be linked to Tibetan surface uplift. If these capture events can be dated then these can be used to constrain the elusive uplift of Tibet. Although IODP drilling has already been proposed for the Yinggehai-Song Hong Basin that lies between Hainan Island and Vietnam we aim to use the workshop to sharpen the science objectives of this work and specifically to see how the marine drilling might be augmented by additional programs such as continental drilling (ICDP) and land-based field geology. The Workshop was an enormous success and was greatly enjoyed by the participants for its positive discussions. This workshop was co-supported by JAMSTEC, USSAC, ECORD and J-DESC as well as InterMARGINS.
·S.Ladage D.Tappin:Offshore Studies of the Andaman Sumatra Earthquake
The workshop was hosted by BGR German under intimate relationship with InterMARGINS although InterMARGINS had no financial support. The workshop was conducted at Federal Institute for Geoscience and Natural Resources (BGR), in Hanover from 22nd to 23rd May 2006. Fifty participants from Australia, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Japan, Norway, UK and the US attended the workshop. Nearly all groups being recently active offshore Sumatra were represented during the workshop. Overviews and results of research cruises already carried out were given in oral and poster presentations on Monday. On Tuesday social aspects and tsunami hazard mitigation presentations were given followed by future research plans offshore Sumatra. A general discussion on issues such as how to enhance cooperation between the working groups offshore Sumatra followed. As one of product of the workshop, the participants agreed to make an effort to build meta database and AGU session.

Workshop to be scheduled:
The chairperson introduced the present situation for the future workshop

Building a Global Data Network for Studies of Earth Processes at the World’s Plate Boundaries hosted by InterMARGINS, US MARGIN, Ridge2000, InterRdige, at Keil Germany on 9th to 11th May 2007. The wprkshop is led by co-converners: S. Carbotte, K. Lehnert, W. Weinrebe and S. Tsuboi

Overview
Over the past decade, rapid advances have occurred in database technology for scientific research providing new access to data and new tools for data visualization and integration. Along with these advances in Information Technology has come the growth of digital data collections for a broad suite of marine geoscience-related data. Developments in database connectivity provide new opportunities for open exchange of data across distributed data collections, greatly expanding the volume and diversity of data available to the scientist to address a particular scientific problem of interest. These advances hold great promise for the solid earth sciences, an inherently multi-national and multi-disciplinary field, which involves the collection of typically unique data sets during oceanic and terrestrial expeditions conducted by research institutions around the globe.

The international marine geoscience community is actively engaged in scientifically aligned goals through the InterRidge/Ridge2000 programs and InterMARGINS/MARGINS programs. US MARGINS has selected a number of sites for focused investigation that lie in waters of other nations and has fostered international partnerships for data collection in the western and eastern Pacific. The US Ridge2000 program plans to support integrated interdisciplinary studies within the MOMAR region of the Mid Atlantic Ridge where the European community has initiated focused investigation. At present there are no formal agreements for data sharing within these international communities, and data exchange occurs primarily by informal agreements between scientists directly involved in specific projects. However significant benefits to these marine geoscience research efforts internationally could be achieved if data collections maintained as national efforts could be better linked and if broader access were initiated. New database technologies are available that enable independent globally distributed sites to share, link, and integrate their data holdings and services while maintaining full ownership and credit for their data holdings.

To explore the opportunities for international data exchange provided by these new technologies, to address the cultural and political challenges to achieve global sharing of data, and to facilitate mid-ocean ridge and continental margin related research internationally, we propose a 2.5 day workshop to be held in Kiel, Germany in late May 2007 at the GEOMAR. We are proposing this as a jointly sponsored meeting with InterMARGINS, MARGINS, InterRidge and Ridge2000 and have received endorsement from these groups to pursue this effort as a collaborative workshop. The workshop will be co-convened with partners from the InterMARGINS and InterRidge communities.

Workshop support to be proposed
The Chairperson introduced the potential proposal to be submitted.
@International IODP Workshop on Large Igneous Province Development and Consequences (by M. Coffin & C. Neal)
@2nd Sumatra Workshop in Southampton (by L. McNeil)

Present status of the InterMARGINS Workshop support
The Chairperson overviewed the present workshop support program and pointed out a few problems to be taken place.
@Membership (National) balance
InterMARGINS office wish to make a national balance in number of the proposal, adoption rate and numbers of co-conveners of the workshops to be conducted. Eg. Numbers of co-conveners in each country including the scheduled one US 4, Japan 5, UK 2, Norway 0, Germany 2 and China 0 The steering committee endorses the activity for the workshop support proposal from Norway and China, and also advises to the proponents to include conveners from Norway and China in order to enhance the workshop.
@travel expense support
The present style of the InterMARGINS for the travel expense support is to be entrusted to the co-conveners. InterMARGINS has no policy for nominees to take the travel expense support. However some proposals request us to expense it for international participants from the developing country and/or non-InterMARGINS member countries although the Constitution Chapter 2.3 and 2.4 described as; 2.3 Principal Membership will offer the following advantages: guaranteed one designated voting member of the Steering Committee, opportunity to host the InterMARGINS Office and to provide the Steering Committee Chairman, guaranteed membership of all Working Groups including Chairs of such Groups, priority entitlement to InterMARGINS sponsorship of conference and workshop costs, entitlement to receive all information, newsletters and data catalogues.
2.4 Associate and Assistant Memberships will offer the following advantages: guaranteed one designated non-voting (voting) member of the Steering Committee, guaranteed membership of all Working Groups, limited entitlement to InterMARGINS sponsorship of conference and workshop costs, entitlement to receive all information, newsletters and data catalogues.

Therefore, the InterMARGINS office requests the agreement by the steering committee to extend supplied range of the present travel expensive support. In fact, the proposal that requests the travel expense support by non-member country’s scientist for those of developing country’s scientists was proposed as the workshop support. According to the Constitute, the office did not forward it to the steering committee for the reasons of not filling the qualification, and informed to the proponent not to be accepted.
The steering committee agreed to endorse to expand supplied range. This interpretation expands not only to travel expense issue but also to acceptance of the workshop support proposal from non-member country.

@subject/field balance of the workshop to be supported
The Chairperson introduced subjects lists to be accepted in 05 and 06 and pointed out that passive margins related subjects are prominent and few subsurface biosphere issue. He continued that InterMARGINS endorses to keep subject balance as the Chairman messages on the front page of Homepage. Tony mentioned that InterMARGINS keeps very flexible attitude for this issue at moment then no strong message is needed to scientist community.

@Field balance
The workshop support program can accept the proposal from the various fields including science, development of technology for tool or protocols as being described in policy for the workshop support. However, all proposals we accepted in 06 were science-oriented without an exception of the data handling and shearing workshop. The steering committee recommended to expand the target field and announced to expand target field to the various community in the world. In addition the steering committee decided to add education and outreach program on the policy of the workshop support.

Policy: InterMARGINS would like to fund international, interdisciplinary workshops of broad scientific interest on topics that are high priority for MARGINS science. While workshops could include an element of project planning, their focus should be on data sharing and synthesis, advances in understanding active processes that shape margins, development of essential new tools or protocols, education and outreach programs or other activities that clearly benefit a larger community than those attending the workshop.

@goal of the workshop support
The Chairperson introduced the present obligation that the proponents should make and send the workshop report to the InterMARGINS office.
Asian Monsoon (http://www.intermargins.org/workshop/2006_01.php)
Continental Breakup(http://www.intermargins.org/workshop/2006_03.php)
Deep seismic sympo (http://www.intermargins.org/workshop/2006_02.php)
In addition, InterMARGINS recommends the publication of the workshop presentations as the books or special issues of the International Journal. In this year, InterMARGINS supported to publish the special books by Geol. Soc. London G. Karner Imaging, mapping and modeling extensional processes and systems.
The Chairperson emphasized that one of direction of the workshop support is to help and assist the publication including the results of the workshop. Third, the Chairperson mentioned the need for evaluation for workshop support program by working group in the future. Lots of discussions were made on this issue. The Steering committee didn’t make any decision but agreed to continue this discussion in the future in relation to the goal of the InterMARGINS activity.

@Deadlines of the proposal
The Steering committee agreed that the deadlines of call for proposal should be two times per year but the date of the deadline should be changed as bellows 1st April and 1st of November

SCOR ISSUE
The Chairperson reviewed the process to make an affiliation with SCOR and showed the recent response from the ex steering committee of SCOR for condition for the affiliation with SCOR.

Action
According to 6. Changes to the Constitution, the Chairperson proposed the modification of the Constitution to the Steering committee members in 06’ April steering comm., and the modification proposal was approved by majority vote of the Steering Committee in end of June 2006. After the approval, the Chairperson re-submitted to the ex comm. SCOR.

Response from SCOR
InterMARGINS applied for affiliation to SCOR in 2005. The application was discussed and approved, pending clarification of the membership fee structure, to make it more feasible for developing countries to participate. InterMARGINS replied that there is a token fee, but it doesn’t give developing countries full rights in the program.
InterMARGINS should be affiliated to SCOR, pending one additional change: their constitution needs to make it clear that “Assistant Members” can be on the steering committee (see clause 3.1), and that at least one Assistant Member be included on the committee to reflect the views of the others. Extra funds should be sought to help participation of this developing country members to attend steering committee meetings. SCOR should invite a speaker from InterMARGINS to the next General Meeting.

The Steering committee agreed that this issue is going to be discussed in the next Steering committee in EGU. Discussion points were
1) status of the assistant member, allowing the right for voting in the steering committee
2) travel support of the developing country member for the steering committee participation, the steering committee do not consider the travel expense support because the steering committee is going to be held in AGU and EGU.

Collaboration with InterRidge

As the previous steering committee, the steering committee agreed that InterMARGINS do not conduct itself.
The Chairpersons of the InterRidge and InterMRGINS to make progress for the collaboration agreed as below

• Items we would like to discuss together
• @possibility for joint program of education/outreach activities
• @promotion of communication and collaboration on science of common geographic interests and workshop support
• @data handling and shearing issue

• Action
• @ to endorse that the two program offices should have constant communications and exchange of information.
• @ to endorse the joint meeting of the two Steering Committees to discuss on the items together at a suitable time in future.

The Chairperson explained what the chairs talked each other and what the Steering committee discussed the collaboration with InterMARGINS.