Passive continental margins are important for society as they contain large energy resources, and they sustain ecosystems that are the basis for commercial fish stocks. In order to protect this environment we need to understand the geological processes that control them. The margin sediments are dynamic environments. Fluids get expelled from compacting sediments, bottom water temperature changes cause gas hydrate systems to change their locations and occasionally large magmatic intrusions boil the pore water within the sedimentary basins, which is then expelled to the surface. The fluids that seep through the seabed at the top of focused fluid flow systems have a crucial role for seabed ecology, and study of such fluid flow systems can help in predicting the distribution of hydrocarbons in the subsurface preventing major environmental disasters such as the recent Gulf of Mexico oil spill and we use them to decipher the climate record.

Invitation to seminar of

Prof.Dr. Christian Berndt
Leibniz-Institut für Meereswissenschaften
IFM-GEOMAR
Kiel, Germany

on Wednesday 25 August  2010, 10:30 Uhr, Helmholtz-Zentrum Potsdam GFZ
German Research Centre for Geosciencesim Haus/ Room A19