Leader
Valérie CHAVAGNAC (DR CNRS, ER4)
Scientific objectives
We support the operationality of Marine Geosciences locally by structuring with the transverse axis “Land – Sea” of the OMP and the Scientific Instrumentation Group of the OMP. At the national level, the GDR “Margins” of the INSU has helped to structure the scientific community and to establish more collaborations between the academic and industrial community. From this perspective, we intend to continue this effort by establishing a common language for the definition of an academic/industrial twinned scientific cartography. It will be necessary to feed the scientific communication from local to national and international. This approach will be based on the coupling of different methodological approaches to cross the multi-disciplinary results. The strategic research choices remain unchanged:
- The lithosphere-hydrosphere interface: morphology, segmentation, and deformation of oceanic ridges, structuring of the oceanic lithosphere and mantle dynamics, submarine mineral resources, biodiversity of deep-sea ecosystems. This axis is integrated into the major international programs IODP, InterRidge, and the EMSO seafloor observatories.
- The continuum Land – Sea apprehended from the current system for the “top view” with the dynamics of continental surfaces and their solid-liquid-biological export to the oceanic domain (GEOTRACES program), the dispersion of contaminants and hence its impact on coastal ecosystems, coastal erosion, and vulnerability of the coastline (BRGM collaboration) and for the “bottom view” with the transition continental lithosphere – oceanic lithosphere (geology, geophysics, geodynamics) by integrating the sedimentary export “source to sink” and its temporality (TOTAL collaboration), the magmatic processes involved in the continental breakup and the initiation of oceanization, the impact of the temporal variability of the continental-hydrothermal fluxes on the composition of the ancient ocean and the global biogeochemical cycles.
- Instrumental development in support of our research activity for the monitoring of coastal erosion, dispersion of continental contaminants in the ocean, and sampling of hydrothermal fluids on the sea floor without human presence.