RCN Establishing a Seamount Biogeoscience Network (SBN)

这笔赠款用于建立一个海山研究协调网络，称为“海山生物地球科学网络(SBN)”，用于交流和科学协作、数据存档和综合以及分享海洋后勤业务。海山是海洋中被淹没的与世隔绝的山脉，是最多样化、也是人们了解最少的海洋生物环境之一。它们是由一系列地质作用形成的，可以在任何海洋纬度、深度和环境中找到。大多数海山是火山，最终可能会成长为海洋岛屿或珊瑚礁。海山与构造板块一起离开发源地，通常是数千英里，然后随着板块随着年龄的推移而冷却，海山就会下沉。这使得海山成为地球上最古老、最完整的山脉。它们被隔离了长达1.5亿年，每一次都是在不同的地质边界条件下进行海底生命进化的实验。海山为底栖生命提供了一系列中水条件，从营养丰富的深水洋流到浅水。初步的生物学研究表明，海山显示出极端的生物多样性。这为发现和探索新的微生物以及在严格受限的环境中研究它们的生理、生物化学和基因组学提供了独特的机会。海山研究涉及许多科学学科(例如海洋学和火山学)，它们之间很少相互交流，但生物学从与整个光谱的接触中获益良多。克服这些跨学科整合的挑战，对于成功地对水圈、岩石圈和生物圈之间的界面进行生物探索是重要的。SBN的目标是将涉及海山研究的所有不同科学学科聚集在一起，就海山科学进行交流和讨论，并减轻或分担实地考察的后勤负担。该网络的主要组成部分包括定期讲习班，以及开发一个社区网站和一个综合各种海山数据的数据库。

This grant is for the establishment of a seamount research coordination network to be known as the "Seamount Biogeosciences Network (SBN)" for communication and scientific collaboration, data archiving and integration and for sharing of seagoing logistical operations. Seamounts, submerged isolated mountains in the oceans, are amongst the most diverse and still most poorly understood marine biological environments. They are formed by a range of geological processes and may be found at any ocean latitude, depth and environment. Most seamounts are volcanoes that eventually may grow to become ocean islands or reefs. Seamounts travel with tectonic plates away from their site of origin, often by thousands of miles, and then subside as the plate cools with age. This makes seamounts the oldest intact mountains on Earth. They remain in isolation for up to 150 million of years, each one of them an experiment in benthic life evolution within distinct geological boundary conditions. Seamounts offer access of benthic life to a range of mid-water conditions, from deep nutrient rich currents to shallow water. Initial biological studies reveal that seamounts display extreme biodiversity. This offers unique opportunities to identify and explore novel microorganisms, and to study their physiology, biochemistry and genomics in well constrained settings.Seamount research involves many scientific disciplines (e.g. oceanography and volcanology) that only rarely communicate with each other, but biology has much to gain from interfacing with the whole spectrum. Overcoming these challenges of interdisciplinary integration are important to successful biological exploration of the interface between the hydrosphere, lithosphere and biosphere. The goal of the SBN is to bring together all the diverse scientific disciplines involved in seamount research, to communicate about and discuss seamount science, and to ease or share the logistical burden of field expeditions. Key components of this network include regular workshops, and the development of a community website and a database that integrates a wide range of seamount data.