Interdisciplinary Groups: Export of heat and material (living and non-living) from hydrothermal systems to the water column

Moderator: Chip Breier

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I’d like to start off by acknowledging the breadth of this topic. To me it relates closely with Question 7 from the R2K science plan:
How and to what extent does hydrothermal flux influence the physical, chemical, and biological characteristics of the overlying ocean?
That’s a very big ocean-centric question that challenges us to quantify and describe all the significant ways that hydrothermal flux affects the oceans. In addition, hydrothermal export also relates to the other geo-centric and bio-centric R2K questions – so this truly is a broad topic. Few of us will be experts in all the research areas that tie into this topic. But we shouldn’t let that stop us from participating in the discussion because in order to make progress we will need to make disparate connections across disciplines. Since the topic is so broad and generic we really need to scope it out and get into the details. One way to promote the discussion is by posting and answering questions – I’ll start doing this regularly to get the ball going. Another way to promote the discussion is to have those willing give a brief statement about some of their current relevant research – again to get the ball rolling I’ll be asking some of you to do this. As we get going we’ll also need to think about some other specifics such as workshop goals and I’ll make sure those get discussed as well.

A few suggestions/guidelines to start with,
1) Anybody can post a question and anyone can answer it or add to it.
2) Anybody can post about their own research at any time, but since people can be naturally hesitant about this and I don’t know what everyone is doing – if you know someone who’s got something to add go ahead and ask them if they’d be will to do so.
3) You can post about anything related to this topic even if it hasn’t been brought up yet – I’ll try to keep things moving broadly but if I don’t bring up something your interested in it’s probably because I don’t know anything about it, so feel free to speak up.
4) You don’t have to be going to the synthesis meeting to participate in the wiki – in fact I’m going to be asking people to contribute that I know aren’t going to be able to go, so if you know someone that is in a similar situation go ahead and ask them to participate too. R2K would however like it if those that participate first sign up as R2K members.

As moderator I’ll be trying to push the discussion forward and also organize the wiki content as it develops.