Conference: AGU Chapman Conference on Hydrothermal Circulation and Seawater Chemistry

American Geophysical Union, Washington DC

Investigators

Abstract

AGU is convening a Chapman Conference in May 2023 to bring together experts studying hydrothermal circulation to provide a better understanding of these processes and their influence both on current and past ocean chemistry. This grant is to provide support to allow students and early career researchers who would usually not be able to attend and/or travel to the conference to participate. This support is important in expanding the diversity of attended and developing and mentoring future research around this important topic. The largest groundwater systems on Earth are under the oceans. The most vigorous systems are driven by heat from magmas under the long ocean ridges, which form new ocean crust; other systems move through older crust and sediment, and other submarine or island volcanic systems. Ocean water moves through these systems and reacts with the crust and sediments, influencing the chemistry of the ocean over time. This process also produces key mineral deposits on the ocean floor. Understanding these systems is important, for example, in considering the role of the ocean for long term storage of captured carbon dioxide and thus addressing climate change. This award is co-funded by the Geobiology and Low-Temperature Geochemistry Program in the Division of Earth Sciences with the Marine Geology and Geophysics and Chemical Oceanography Programs in the Division of Ocean Sciences. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.