Summary
The proposed Research Network Programme aims to establish and strengthen the European component of the international initiative “COCARDE: An Industry-Academia Partnership for the Study of Cold-Water Carbonate Reservoir Systems in Deep Environments”. The rationale of COCARDE-ERN is to bundle multidisciplinary and cross-cultural scientific efforts to explore and drill carbonate mounds through space and time. COCARDE-ERN is riding the wave of major achievements in recent carbonate mound research during the last few decades fueled by remarkable discoveries in the early nineties. The generalized observation of recent cold-water carbonate mound systems and associated cold-water coral ecosystems at basinal scale, has added a new dimension to the concept of carbonate factories, serving as a complementary counterpart to warm-water carbonate build-ups.
A unique opportunity is shaped in these years to provide an integrated insight in carbonate mound systems on the European and North African margins, as an onset of a global venture, through a teaming up of the academic mound research community and the hydrocarbon industry. The exciting research subject of mounds as a fundamental strategy of Life throughout the history of the Earth meets the Industry interest for unconventional carbonate reservoirs. Approaching these mound systems from recent and fossil perspectives will shed a new light on carbonate mound research in a changing world.
Exploring new research strategies based on the innovative and holistic 4D way of thinking will drive carbonate mound science beyond its present limits. Combining academic and industrial efforts, confronting warm-water and cold-water carbonate factories especially at the turn between icehouse and greenhouse worlds and exploring the variety of mound systems in space and time, will create a profound knowledge platform upon which young researchers can build-up their career by training and acquiring multi-disciplinary skills in earth sciences.
Duration
Five years from June 2011 to May 2016.
External Web page
More information is available on the COCARDE-ERN external web page
