Minutes of the I.O.N. Meeting of January 23, 2001
INSTITUTIONAL AND NATIONAL REPORTS(in alphabetical order)
Some reports are detailed in extended abstracts of the proceedings of the joint OHP/ION symposium

AUSTRALIA(Brian Kennett)
Project in AAD (Australo-Antarctic Discordance)

C.T.B.T.O (Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organisation)(Petr Firbas)
The Provisional Technical Secretariat (PTS) of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO)
will be processing data from aglobal hydroacoustic system which will be comprised of 11 stations. Six of these stations
will be hydrophone based and five will be deployed on-shore to record T-phases (T-phase stations). The hydrophonestations are planned to be composed typically of two triplets of hydrophones. The aperture of each triplet will be aroundone kilometre. This set-up will help to avoid blockage by island(s) and to help distinguish signals arriving fromdifferent azimuths. The first ocean basin to be covered will be the Indian Ocean. The Diego Garcia hydrophone station
with two hydrophone triplets issending data already to the International Centre (IDC) in Vienna, Austria.The
hydroacoustic data will be processed at the IDC along with the seismic,infrasonic and radionuclide data from the other
CTBT global systems. It is expected that automatic processing of the hydroacoustic data will be close to real time andthat the hydroacoustic signals will be processed together with seismic and infrasonic data to produce automatic global
seismo- acoustic bulletin. This automatic bulletin will be reviewed by human analysts and the so-called Reviewed Event
Bulletin (REB) will be distributed to the States Signatories to the CTBT within two days of the data day.

FRANCE(Jean-Paul Montagner, Pascal Tarits)
The OFM program (Observatoire Fond de Mer = Ocean Floor Observatory) is trying to coordinate the efforts of theSeismological and the Geomagnetic communities. It is running slowly. The main problem stems from the difficult
relationships between academic institutions and IFREMER (French Institute of Geosciences).Ifremer is very reluctant
to support a scientific program on a long-term basis except at the European level. The appointment of a new Director
Jean-Francois Minster, should improve this situation.
Several initiatives have been taken by academic research groups:- At the European level, IPG-Paris is participating to the GEOSTAR2 project (see Italian report) .IPG will provide abroadband seismometer derived from space technology. This seismometer will be also used in the portable ocean
bottom broadband seismic station GEODIS (see Beguery et al., see extended abstract in proceedings).
-European program MOMAR (Monitoring of Mid-Atlantic Ridge) for investigating the Azores plume and its interaction
with the Ridge. A European proposal MAGIA (Multiscale Approach of Geohazards Investigation in Azores)
coordinated by CGUL (Lisboa, Portugal) has been written but is not yet funded. It might be the Regional scale
component of MOMAR.
Another european is under discussion: O.P.P. (Ocean Plume Program).It is involving Germany, France and U.K. andmight be coordinated byJason Phipps Morgan in Germany.
A joint Japanese-French project is under discussion for the installation of NERO (Ninety-East Ridge Observatory) in
the Indian Ocean. UBO (Brest) is participating to the electromagnetic part of H2O which should be installed in 2002, inthe the framework of an american-french cooperative project.

GERMANY(Rainer Kind)
An effort is ongoing for purchasing OBS networks in the following institutions.
- GEOMAR: short period and broadband OBS O.P.P. (Ocean Plume Program): coordinated by Jason-Phipps Morgan Alfred Wegener Institute- University of Hamburg- GeoForschungsZentrum Potsdam

ITALY(Giuseppe Smriglio)
GEOSTAR2 is a multidisciplinary project funded by E.C. The Project involves groups in Italy, Germany and France.
The experiment is ongoing (Sept. 2000 - Apr. 2001) in the Tyrrhenian Sea(2,000 m w.d.) at south-west of Ustica Island(380 32'.4 lat. N; 120 46'.5long. E). The near real time communication buoy has been deployed inDecember 2000 (seeextended abstract of Smriglio and Favalli in the proceedings).
Regarding GEOSTAR scientific sensors some difficulties has been encounteredto integrate the space seismometer (notyet ready) and to operate theGuralp seismometer (glass sphere cracked before deployment). Other modules areoperating correctly. During GEOSTAR experiment, 7 OBS and 7 OBH have been deployed in SouthernTyrrhenian Sea
in co-operation with Geomar (Tyde Project). These instruments will be recovered in May 2001.
New programs:• The deployment of a sea bottom observatory, derived from GEOSTAR, is foreseen in the Antarctica (Weddell Sea).
The experiment will be done in the Antarctic summer 2001-2002 in collaboration with Alfred Wegener Institute for
Polar Science.foreseen in 2002 in the Ionian Sea offshore Catania (2,100 m w.d.). This station should be connected withshore by an electro-optical cable (in collaboration with Italian Nuclear Physics Institute) and should become theFirst
station of a permanent network.
• Other European programs:• A proposal, co-ordinated by INGV, has been submitted to the last EC Call.The proposal is aimed at the deployment
in the Tyrrhenian Sea (Marsili area) of an array of sea bottom observatories, mainly dedicated to the solid Earth science.
This array should be composed by a central station and some smaller sea bottom observatories, all derived fromGEOSTAR. All nodes should be able to exchange data and commands among them and with central station and shore.

JAPAN(Hitoshi Mikada, Kiyoshi Suyehiro)- OHP (see extended abstract of Fukao et al.)- 2nd cable system installed, offshore Hokkaido- 5 ocean cable seismic observatories to be developed. + geodetic and geomagnetic sensors.
In the framework of IODP, a new riser is under development.
Priority site: Nankai trough (seismogenic zone) So far, 3 observatories are oprating on the ocean floor: WP2, JT1,2
Other extended abstracts in the proceedings detail some of these projects.

United Kingdom(Adam Schultz)
National Programs:- B-DEOS (British component of DEOS) (see extended abstract on the B-DEOS plans by Schultz et al. in theproceedings)

U.S.A.
Many programs have been launched
California - Monterey (Debra Stakes and Barbara Romanowicz)
Multidisciplinary Observatory Development in Monterey Bay (see extended abstract of Stakes et al.)Dynamics of Earth and Ocean Systems: D.E.O.S. (John Orcutt, Bob Detrick)Creation of a new group on Ocean Observatories.
Proposition of a New Major Research Equipment for Ocean observatories. This program is coordinating different
programs at different spatial scales, local, plate scale, global scale.
(see extended abstract of Orcutt and Detrick).
A thorough investigation on mooring was undertaken. (see extended abstract of Detrick et al.)H2O (Alan Chave, Rhett Butler)
This observatory after some initial problems is now perfectly operating and provide continuous data to IRIS/DMC.
There is a proposal for biological and Electromagnetic observatory.
NEPTUNE (John Delaney)
Real-time, long-term Ocean and Earth Studies at the scale of a tectonic Plate.
(see the extended abstract of Delaney et al.)GOOS (Chris Mooers)
The Global Ocean Observing System (GOOS) has been under development for more than a decade by IOC, WMO, andUNEP, with links to ICSU, GCOS, and GTOS. It aims to integrate in situ and satellite remote sensing observations andwill rely heavily upon numerical modeling for the integration. It also aims to integrate ocean physics, chemistry, andbiology. The emphasis is on fostering real-time, synoptic operational oceanography, analogous to operationalmeteorology, but in an alliance with the research community. The drivers are climate and global change, marinetransportation, marine operations, natural hazards in the coastal zone,marine ecosystem management, sustainablefisheries, and so forth. Since GOOS is long-term and deals with the full water column, there may be possibilities for
ION to find common grounds with GOOS. There are several regional GOOS activities underway around the world. Inthe USA, there are revitalized efforts to help develop both global-GOOS and coastal-GOOS.
At the IUGG General Assembly in Birmingham, UK in JUL 99, a resolution endorsing the Integrated Global Earth
Monitoring System concept was adopted as an IUGG priority.In concert with the various discipline-based global
observing system initiatives in progress, planned, or proposed, IUGG has a role to play in bringing the broadgeophysical research community into the dialogue about such systems, to promote their use in scientific research, toadvise on their scientific design, to seek synergies and economies between systems, and to use their data to assess thestate of the Earth System. Thus, it may be beneficial to affiliate ION more broadly withIUGG than just IASPEI.
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Discussion.
• How to coordinate efficiently ION activity with ODP?
• Possibility to move from IASPEI umbrella towards IUGG umbrella• Improvement of the web site: suggestions and comments are welcome.
• Circulation of information: It should be necessary to open an office similar to the InterRidge Office, financially
supported by participating countries. A full time PhD student should be well suited for this task.
•Modification of the Charter of I.O.N. (see proceedings).
________________________________________________________________________________
List of participants at the ION institutional meeting________________________________________________________________________________NameInstitution

E-mailBarbara ROMANOWICZ
Chris MOOERS
Giuseppe SMRIGLIO
Ralph STEPHENJohn R.DELANEY
Pascal TARITS
Alan CHAVE
Petr FIRBAS
Rainer KIND
Bob DETRICKJohn ORCUTT
Alan DZIEWONSKI
Adam SCHULTZ
Kiyoshi SUYEHIRO
Rhett BUTLER
Domenico GIARDINI
Hitoshi MIKADA
Brian KENNETT
Jean-Paul MONTAGNER

U.C. Berkeley, USA
RSMAS/Univ. Miami, USA
I.N.G.V., Roma, Italy
W H O I, USA
University of Washington
Univ. Brittany, Brest, France
W H O I, USA
CTBO, Vienna, Austria
GFZ Postdam, Germany
W H O I, USA
Scripps,IGPP, USA
Harvard Univ. USA
Cardiff University, UK
JAMSTEC, Japan
IRIS , Washington DC, USA
ETH Zurich, Switzerland
JAMSTEC, JapanANU Canberra, Australia
IPG, Paris, France

barbara@seismo.berkeley.edu
cmooers@rsmas.miami.edu
geostar@ingv.it
rstephen@whoi.edu
jdelaney@u.washington.edu
tarits@univ-brest.fr
alan@whoi.edu
Petr.Firbas@ctbto.org
kind@gfz-potsdam.derdetrick@whoi.edu
jorcutt@igpp.ucsd.edu
dziewons@eps.harvard.edu
adam@ocean.cf.ac.uk
suyehiro@jamstec.go.jp
rhett@iris.edu
giardini@seismo.ifg.ethz.ch
mikada@jamstec.go.jp
brian@rses.anu.edu.au
jpm@ipgp.jussieu.fr