GEOTRACES community meets to plan synthesis of results

A successful GEOTRACES Synthesis Preparation Hybrid Workshop took place on 3–4 July at the Hanse-Wissenschaftskolleg – Institute for Advanced Study (HWK), Delmenhorst, Germany, and online. The event was organised by Walter Geibert and Elena Masferrer-Dodas (Alfred Wegener Institute, Bremerhaven, Germany/GEOTRACES IPO, Toulouse) and brought together 38 participants from 16 countries.

The objective of the workshop was to initiate and strengthen collaboration on synthesizing existing GEOTRACES results, to explore future opportunities for the programme, and to develop actionable steps for synthesis.

The programme (available here) began on Thursday morning with a session focused on “Taking Stock: What kind of synthesis efforts are already going on?,” during which various components of GEOTRACES were reviewed to assess what has been achieved, what synthesis activities are already in progress, and how these efforts are being carried out. On Thursday afternoon, attention shifted to “Aims and Strategies,” where different approaches to synthesis were discussed. Friday morning was dedicated to “Networking and Funding,” offering participants an opportunity to reflect on the types of networks they would like to see in the future, explore funding possibilities to support synthesis activities, and identify current barriers to progress.

A full report of the report will be submitted to the Scientific Steering Committee in October. In the meantime, several discussion channels have been made available on DISCORD (join here: https://discord.gg/nv7xrcA9 ), and a call for volunteers is open for those interested in contributing to the development of a GEOTRACES research topic to seek funding at the European level here: https://forms.gle/rEpSq7d6S7T9UdQCA .

The workshop was supported by Hanse Wissenschafts Kolleg (HWK) and the Scientific Committee on Oceanic Research (SCOR).