US-France Planning Visit and Workshop: Modern Biogeochemical Cycling Processes in Mud Wave-Deltaic Deposits Along the Guianas Coast, Kourou, French Guiana

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0334664AllerThis one-year award supports a planning visit to Kourou, French Guiana and subsequent workshop to explore U.S.-France cooperative research on biogeochemical cycling processes in mud wave-deltaic deposits along the Amazon - Guianas coast. Mangrove-fringed coastlines, such as those along the Guianas, recycle and exchange nutrients with the coastal ocean and significantly increase the fertility of adjacent waters. Led by Josephine Y. Aller of the State University of New York (SUNY) at Stony Brook and Francois Fromard and Alain Pave of the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) research laboratory in Kourou, French Guiana, the U.S. and French researchers will lay the groundwork for investigations in microbial biogeochemistry and modern elemental cycling in a typical coastal mud wave system along the Guianas. They will address issues of sedimentary transport processes, early digenetic reactions, the microbial community in the intertidal and sub tidal deposits, and the exchange of material between the mangrove fringe, coastal waters, and atmosphere. NSF will fund travel to French Guiana of a 6 person multidisciplinary team from SUNY Stony Brook, Tulane University, and University of Louisiana. They will meet with scientists from several French universities and from the CNRS research platform located in Kourou, the National College for Agricultural Engineering, Water Management and Forests in Kourou, and the Research Institute for Development in Cayenne. This workshop would set the stage for advancing research on the central role of tropical coastal margins, which presently dominate continental inputs of materials in the world oceans.