Paleoceanography of the Brazilian Equatorial Margin

February 4-February 6, 2014 – Maresias, Brazil
Convener: Luigi Jovane

Overview

The Brazilian Equatorial Margin (BEM) is a passive, stable margin at equatorial latitudes characterized by continuous sedimentary sequences divided among a series of basins. These basins contain a unique record of regional tectonic, biotic, and climatic events from the end of the early Cretaceous to present. This workshop aims to build community support and to develop an integrated drilling strategy to obtain high-quality tectono-sedimentary and paleoceanographic records for the Mesozoic and Cenozoic BEM to improve our knowledge of the response of the regional physical and biological systems to (a) the opening and expansion of the South Atlantic, and (b) long- and short-term changes in global climate, particularly the extreme greenhouse events, and Cenozoic cooling. More specifically, by integrating coring data with models, the results of drilling will offer new insights into: (1) regional sea level response to glacioeustatic and tecto-sedimentary changes along the BEM; (2) evolution of tropical marine climate (sea surface temperature and salinity) to elevated levels of atmospheric CO₂; (3) regional circulation (i.e., current intensity) and sea level response to opening of Southern ocean gateways, Eocene cooling and the appearance and expansion of continental ice-sheets; (4) the evolution of tropical marine ecosystems, productivity, and carbon fluxes; and (5) the evolution of the equatorial landscape and sediment fluxes to the margin. In this workshop, we solicit active and relevant proponent investigating potential drill sites and IODP proposals that seek to enhance our understanding of BEM tectonic and environmental changes and other topics on all temporal and spatial scales.

Application
If you are interested in participating, please send a short CV and a brief statement of interest, Luigi Jovane (jovane@usp.br) by December 20, 2013. Partial travel support is available for a limited number of U.S. participants. We encourage the participation of graduate students and early career scientists. Planning updates will be posted on the workshop’s Facebook page.

Steering Committee
Luigi Jovane, Instituto Oceanografico da Universidade de Sao Paulo
Heath Mills, University of Houston Clear Lake
Dilce Rossetti, National Institute for Space Research
Helmut Weissert, ETH Zurich
Paul Wilson, University of Southampton
Jason Morgan, University of London
Paola Vannucchi, University of London
James Zachos, University of California, Santa Cruz