Workshop Announcement ODSN

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Bremen, 28.9.95

Dear Colleagues,

following You find the announcement for an international workshop to be
held in Bremen at the end of the year, which invites scientists from different
to discuss the establishment of a widely based stratigraphic communication
and data exchange network.

Everybody is invited to participate, contribute his ideas and needs and
join this effort to improve the quality, accessibility and usage of
stratigraphic data and to allow the integration of data sets.

Volkhard Spiess



============================================================================

Announcement for an International Workshop:

"Objectives and Implementation of an 
Ocean Drilling Stratigraphic Network (ODSN)"

North German Initiative Group, Bremen, Bremerhaven, Kiel, F.R.G 

Volkhard Spiess, Hannes Grobe, William W. Hay, 
Wolfgang Kuhnt, Jörn Thiede, Gerold Wefer

Bremen, Germany, December, 18 - 20, 1995

Sediment stratigraphic data from deep ocean drilling have been successfully
collected for several decades within the Deep Sea Drilling Project and Ocean
Drilling Program. These international activities had a major impact on the
understanding of the Earth's climate system and its history and provided
detailed information about environmental conditions in the geologic past. 
New techniques and data sets, their increasing amount, quality and
resolution require new approaches to produce integrated chronostratigraphic
models from different data sources. Where the acquisition of data related to
shipboard drilling activities is organized in a professional manner through
the drilling program operator, the results of subsequent shorebased
activities falls under the responsibility of the individual scientists. 
Part of the data are published in the scientific results volumes, but the
paper medium is no longer providing an adequate archive for these scientific
efforts. Part of the data is available in electronic form in the ODP
database and on DSDP and ODP CDROMs, but in a variety of formats that are
not readily integrated.
An "Ocean Drilling Stratigraphic Network" should be established to overcome
some of these deficits and provide a distributed database system and a
communication network for data exchange and scientific cooperation. It
should promote development and repeated calibration of integrated
stratigraphies for drill sites, regions or geologic time intervals on a
long-term basis. The project is viewed as a resource for further scientific
programmes to provide improved age models, better time correlation between
drill sites, regions and oceans and to finally maintain a homogenous
stratigraphic data set.
As a starting initiative a group of marine geologists and geophysicists from
four North German institutions (AWI, GeoB, GEOMAR, GPI) is organizing a
workshop about the perspectives for the described approach. It is planned to
exchange experiences from other projects, to discuss the technical,
scientific and logistic aspects of these ideas with colleagues in particular
from the ODP community and to develop a final concept for an "Ocean Drilling
Stratigraphic Network". The resulting document may also contain letters of
intent from interested institutions and individuals for a long-term
commitment to the project, can serve as a base for further scientific
project proposals. The main objectives of the project and the workshop are:
· Design of a network for information and data exchange between scientists
related to ocean drilling activities (in particular ODP and DSDP)
· Design and buildup of a database, which includes drilling-related data
sets and stratigraphic results and interpretations produced after the
shipboard activities. A close connection to the JANUS database project for
shipboard data acquisition is essential. The database will be repeatedly
updated from new calibration results and chronostratigraphic concepts to
maintain age data on a high quality level. 
· Collection and evaluation of biostratigraphic and taxonomic microfossil data
· Development of uniform micropaleontologic taxonomic concepts to provide
the essential basis for comparisons between data set in space and time
· Establishment of integrated, easily updatable chronostratigraphic concepts
and age models for DSDP and ODP drill sites, using and combining all
available stratigraphic data sets
· Availability of the database in the Internet and WordWideWeb
· Preparation of stratigraphic data syntheses for future drilling campaigns
· Initiation of complex scientific projects, which are based on coherent
data sets and permit regional analysis (e.g. paleobiogeographic) and in
terms of well defined time slices

To participate in the workshop or in the stratigraphic network or for
further information, please contact 

Volkhard Spiess
Department of Geoscience
University of Bremen
P.O. Box 33 04 40
D-28334 Bremen
F.R.G.

Tel. ++49 421 218-3387
Fax ++49 421 218-7179
Email: a13g@mtu.uni-bremen.de
WWW: http://www.mtu.uni-bremen.de/odsn.html (under construction)


=====================================================
 Dr. Volkhard Spiess, Prof. for Geophysics
Fachgebiet Meerestechnik/Umweltforschung
  (Marine Technology/Environmental Sciences)
Fachbereich Geowissenschaften (Dept. of Earth Sciences)
Universitaet Bremen (University of Bremen)

Building:  Klagenfurter Str.,  D-28359 Bremen
Mail:  P.O. Box 33 04 40,  D-28334 Bremen,  Germany

Voice  ++49 421 218-3387,  Fax    ++49 421 218-7179
EMail  a13g@mtu.uni-bremen.de
WWW    http://www.mtu.uni-bremen.de/
=====================================================