Extreme marine environments

An international workshop on extreme marine environments will be held in Kiel, Germany, from 19 to 22 November 1998. It will be jointly sponsored by the European Commission, within the Marine Science and Technology research programme (MAST), and the German Ministry for Education, Science, Research and Technology.

The aim of the workshop is to increase current understanding of the processes which operate today in selected extreme environmental settings, in order to better predict how human activity may affect the global environment. In addition, the need to identify new, standardised deep-sea technologies will be discussed, and the results of related research projects, examining issues such as gas hydrates and sea-ice ecosystems, will be presented.

The specific aims of the working groups of the conference will include:

- To identify major interacting parameters in complex geotopes and biotopes;
- To assess the frequencies and magnitudes of extreme events;
- To model the re-equilibration of environments after perturbation;
- To predict the potential dangers of extreme events and the effects caused by extreme environments on society;
- To evaluate the anthropogenic effects on natural viability;
- To recognise feed-back mechanisms and new reaction pathways;
- To develop new deep-sea technologies;
- To implement a European network to coordinate and carry out joint research projects.
For further information, please contact:

European Commission
DG XII - Science, research and development
Unit D.3
MAST programme
Ms Elisabeth Lipiatou
200 rue de la Loi
B-1049 Brussels
Fax +32-2-2963024
E-mail: research@ec.europa.eu