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SILICON, from stardust to the living world

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For several decades, the « Silicon Group » of the Institut Universitaire Européen de la Mer (IUEM) has been studying the silicon cycle on an international scale. In 2020, it created the “Silica School”, whose major themes are summarized in this documentary film. Billions of years ago, silicon was created in the universe by stellar nucleosynthesis. It’s not beyond the realms of possibility that this element serves as the basis for other forms of life in the universe. On planet Earth, it is the second most abundant element, after oxygen. It is a component of numerous minerals whose interaction with the aqueous environment generates a chemical form that can be assimilated by living organisms. Although the oceanic silicon cycle is currently in equilibrium, disruptions are to be expected in the context of ongoing global change.

This documentary film has been imagined by Paul Treguer, produced by Sébastien Hervé and benefits from a collaboration with Océanopolis, the center for scientific, technical and industrial culture in Brest (France).

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Do you NAWRAS ?

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The NAWRAS project, coordinated by IRD (Marie BONNIN) and the University of Cadi Ayyad in Marrakech (Jihad ZAHIR), is a research project that proposes to use artificial intelligence to analyze “where, when and how the law protects the oceans.” The goal is to use language models (such as Chat GPT) and train them on texts of marine environmental law in order to obtain indicators that can evaluate the level of legislative protection of the Ocean.

On November 28 and 29, the second seminar of the project was held in Marrakech. On this occasion, two films were made to introduce you to this innovative project and the methods it explores.

 

Project Presentation Video

The 2023 workshop in Marrakech

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Upcoming event: WGFAST Conference, from April 9 to 12 at IUEM

The ICES/CIEM Working Group on Acoustics, Fisheries Science and Technology (WGFAST) has cutting-edge expertise in all aspects of fish stock assessment and the estimation of essential indicators for the management of pelagic species. It also develops essential approaches for the ecosystem-based knowledge and management of the environment, thanks to: the diversity of platforms on which acoustics can be deployed; the range of organisms that can be detected and recognized (zooplankton, micronekton, fish, marine mammals, etc.); the high resolution of the information, allowing analysis of interactions with environmental parameters; the non-destructive quality of the approach applicable to protected areas.

It will be structured into three sessions:

  • Acoustic methods for characterizing populations, ecosystems, habitat and behavior
  • Acoustic characterization of marine organisms
  • Emerging technologies, methodologies and protocols

Approaches for monitoring industrial areas of the sea, such as offshore wind farms, are welcome.

 

Complete information and registration on the IUEM website

 

The event, which is expected to bring together about 80 people each day, is organized by our colleagues from the acoustic platform.

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NAWRAS Project: Workshop on Developing Legal Indicators

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Developing Legal Indicators in Environmental Law

The working meeting on legal indicators as part of the Nawras project was held on March 18 and 19, 2024, in the Meeting Room of the Jabir Center / Department of Computer Science of the Faculty of Sciences Semlalia (Cadi Ayyad University – Marrakech).

The 20 participants were able to attend a presentation by Professor Michel Prieur on the importance of developing legal indicators in environmental law. Christophe Bastin then presented the method developed by the International Center for Comparative Environmental Law (CIDCE). The progress of the Nawras project was then presented by Marie Bonnin, Jihad Zahir and Youssef Al Mouatamid. During the next two half-days, the participants debated with the invited researchers (Thais Nunnez-Rocha – environmental economist – University of Orléans, Adrien Comte – IRD LEMAR in visio and Sophie Lanco – IRD Marbec in visio) on the variables and metrics selected as part of the project and on the possibilities of joint publications.

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The ocean may be storing more carbon than estimated in previous studies

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Our colleague Frédéric Le Moigne contributed to an international study on the efficiency of the oceanic carbon pump. The study, published this week in Nature magazine, reassesses the ocean’s capacity to store carbon, particularly through ‘marine snow’. The CNRS issued a press release about this publication :

The ocean’s capacity to store atmospheric carbon dioxide is almost 20% higher than the estimates presented in the latest IPCC report. These are the findings of a study published in the journal Nature on 6 December 2023 by an international team including a biologist from the CNRS. The scientists looked at the role played by plankton in the natural transport of carbon from the surface to the seabed.

Plankton is fond of this gas, which it transforms into organic tissue through photosynthesis during its development, and some of it is transformed into marine particles at the end of its life. Denser than seawater, this ‘marine snow’ sinks to the seabed, storing carbon and providing essential nutrients for many deep-sea creatures, from tiny bacteria to deep-sea fish.

Based on the study of a database collected from around the world since the 1970s using oceanographic vessels, the team of seven scientists were able to digitally map the fluxes of organic matter throughout the oceans. The resulting new estimate of storage capacity is 15 gigatonnes per year, an increase of around 20% on the previous studies (11 gigatonnes per year) reported by the IPCC in its 2021 report.

This reassessment of the seabed’s storage capacity represents a significant advance in our understanding of carbon exchanges between the atmosphere and the ocean at a global level. While the team stresses that this absorption process takes place over tens of thousands of years, and is therefore not sufficient to offset the exponential increase in CO2 emissions generated by global industrial activity since 1750, this study nevertheless reinforces the importance of the ocean ecosystem as a major player in regulating the global climate in the long term.

Global distribution of organic carbon flux from the surface layer of the open ocean.
© Wang et al., 2023, Nature.

 

Reference:

Biological carbon pump estimate based on multi-decadal hydrographic data. Wei-Lei Wang, Weiwei Fu, Frédéric A. C. Le Moigne, Robert T. Letscher, Yi Liu, Jin-Ming Tang, and François W. Primeau. Nature, le 6 décembre 2023.
DOI : https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-023-06772-4

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Copyright : Laboratoire LEMAR- 2018

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