ECORD Council #5 - Summary / Bonn, 20-21 October 2004

The meeting was hosted by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft and held in the DFG headquarters in Bonn. Secretary General of the DFG, Dr. Reinhard Grunwald, in his welcome speech pointed out at the importance of the IODP and the formation of ECORD as a truly international effort in networking and cooperation, and expressed the willingness of DFG to further support it.

ECORD Council members from Austria, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and United Kingdom were present. Observers from Korea, Italy, Germany, UK, EMA, ESSAC and ESF also attended the meeting.

ECORD membership
With Austria who joined in FY 05, ECORD is now composed of 15 member countries, including Canada, whose provisional membership is extended until the next council meeting. To increase the MSP capability of the Consortium, the ECORD Council welcomes other countries to join ECORD Consortium, even if they are not European countries. Thus the Council welcomed Korea whose representatives gave a presentation of the Korean-IODP structure and expressed the intention to join IODP next year, possibly by joining ECORD.

ECORD candidates for IODP-MI BoG were nominated: O.Eldholm, D.Falvey and J.Thiede.

EMA reported on the IODP Council meeting held on 10 July in Paris. The ECORD Council recognises the need to push forward the science agenda for IODP and strongly encourages ESSAC to organise workshops in key scientific areas of interest to Europe.

EMA outreach activities. The ECORD Newsletter # 3 was presented. It contains 8 pages to provide more space for ESSAC news. EMA is in charge of the coordination of setting up IODP booths at major conferences held in Europe, and contributed to the success of the IODP booths at the 32nd IGC in Florence (August 2004) and at the Paleoceanography Conference in Biarritz (September 2004). Work is in progress for the preparation of ECORD materials to be presented at the IODP booth at the EGU conference in Vienna (April 2005).

ESO reported on the implementing and planning of MSP operations. For the ACEX, a detailed report was given, including the summary of outreach activities. The high-risk drilling operation received excellent coverage in mass media. A total of 339 metres of core recovered during 24 days at the operations site have already yielded excellent scientific results, and our knowledge of the Arctic Ocean history will be hugely expanded as a result of ACEX. The on-shore party starts working in November. The ECORD Council congratulated ESO on successfully undertaking the ACEX drilling operation. For Tahiti Sea Level operation, planning is in progress. Notifications for the science party have been sent out. Co-chiefs have been appointed.

Budget issues for FY05 were discussed. The ECORD and ESSAC FY04 and FY05 budgets were approved. The ESO budget was approved provisionally.

ESSAC reported on progress in the operation schedule (four more expeditions scheduled) and the information data base of European involvement in IODP. ESSAC will determine “hot spots” in scientific topics and geographical areas of interest to European scientists and organise workshops.

ECORD-Net activities were discussed, and reports on Work Packages 1 and 2 presented.

EUROCORE proposal – a new version of the EuroCODE, European Collaboration for Ocean Drilling Enablement for coordinated pre-drilling cruise science was discussed. ECORD funding agencies decided to ask ESF to support a workshop where ECORD funding agency representatives and key scientists will discuss the mechanism of rapid implementation of the EuroCores program proposal. This meeting will aim at finalising a call for proposal.

Vice Chairs and Executive. The Council nominated Chris Franklin (UK) as incoming vice-Chair as of 1 April. The Executive for the period October 2004 - April 2005 consists of S. Duerr (Chair), J.Björck (Vice Chair), J. Ludden (Vice Chair), C.Franklin and S. Persoglia. As of 1 April, C.Franklin will be replaced by Maria Luz Peñacoba as member of Executive.

Next meetings: ECORD Council meeting is foreseen for 11-12 April, 2005, in Stockholm. ECORD-Net meeting is planned for 7 February, 2005.
Participants
ECORD Council members
Reinhard Belocky
Austria
John Ludden (vice-Chair) France
Sören Dürr (Chair) Germany
Sergio Persoglia Italy
Raymond Schorno Netherlands
Are Birger Carlson Norway
José Hipolito Monteiro Portugal
Maria Luz Penacoba Spain
Jonas Björck
Sweden, vice-chair
Chris J. Franklin (Executive)
U. K.
Observers
Catherine Mével EMA
Svetlana Zolotikova
Dan Evans
ES0
Andy Kingdon
Valentina Zampetti ESSAC
Amelie Winkler
ECORD-Net
Martina Hildebrandt
ESF
Dave Falvey IODP-MI BoG
Dae-Choul Kim
Korea
Young-Joo Lee
Soo-Chul Park
Nevio Zitellini Italy


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