As yet, only a small frac­tion of the ocean floor has been sci­en­tific­ally in­vest­ig­ated, but it is already known that this sup­posedly pass­ive en­vir­on­ment is an im­port­ant in­ter­face with a wide range of func­tions that im­pact the en­tire Earth sys­tem. Geo­lo­gical, phys­ical, bio­lo­gical and chem­ical pro­cesses in­ter­act at and within the ocean floor, thus in­flu­en­cing the cli­mate sys­tem, the global car­bon cycle, and bio­lo­gical pro­ductiv­ity in the world ocean. We still know too little about ocean-floor pro­cesses to com­pile de­tailed global mass budgets.

The Cluster of Ex­cel­lence ›The Ocean Floor – Earth’s Un­charted In­ter­face‹ aims to ini­ti­ate a new chapter in ocean-floor re­search by quan­ti­fy­ing ex­change pro­cesses at this sig­ni­fic­ant bound­ary layer and their roles in the Earth sys­tem. This will be achieved by:

• deciphering processes that control the transport of biogenic particles to the ocean floor and their transformation under changing climate conditions,
• balancing the transfer of carbon and other elements between the ocean floor and seawater,
• understanding how ocean-floor ecosystems react to environmental changes, and
• developing scenarios for a ›warmer-than-present world‹ from ocean-floor climate archives with the help of climate models.

These sci­entific tasks de­mand the use of novel tech­no­lo­gies for ocean-floor ob­ser­va­tion and sampling, highly sens­it­ive ana­lyt­ical meth­ods, and an ex­pan­ded ap­plic­a­tion of nu­mer­ical mod­els. Be­cause of their sci­entific and tech­no­lo­gical com­plex­ity, the stated goals can only be achieved through in­ter­dis­cip­lin­ary re­search..

Involved Institutions:

• Max-Planck-Institut für Marine Mikrobiologie
• Alfred-Wegener-Institut Helmholtz-Zentrum für Polar- und Meeresforschung
• Jacobs University Bremen gGmbH
• Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg
• Leibniz-Zentrum für Marine Tropenforschung (ZMT) GmbH