Outcomes
One of the most important results of this INQUA project will to disseminate the contourite paradigm, particularly in regions or countries (especially developing countries) in the contourite research objectives. As such, this project will raise social and scientific awareness of the processes and products of deep-water circulation and highlight the significance of deep-water circulation in the Earth's climate, where contourites are a privileged recorder of past global changes.
The main scientific results which will be achieved by this INQUA project:
- Refined depositional models, facies models and sediment budgets will be developed, using a multi- and interdisciplinary approach.
- The sequence stratigraphic framework of contourites and their cyclicity expression on many scales will be refined, based on geophysical, geochemical, sedimentological and palaeontological approaches.
- The ability of contourites to serve as recorder of water mass variability and hence as a recorder for paleoclimatology and paleoceanography will be refined.
- The role of these processes on the "life cycle" of past and present deep-water ecosystems, such as respectively the cold-water mounds and reefs will be clarified.
The project will result in 4 main grouped publications:
- Special issue of Quaternary International related to the special session during the 2nd Deep-Water Circulation Congress in Ghent (2014)
- Special issue in Geo-Marine Letters, Sedimentology or Marine Geology as a result of IODP Expedition 339 (2015)
- Thematical book on new contourite facies models, as a result of the integrated core workshop (2015)
- Thematical Springer Lecture Notes on the integration of the 4 themes of this project.
