SPEAKER 1: Our next speaker is Tamara Baumberger from Newport, and she's going to talk about the Cascadian Margin methane seeps. TAMARA BAUMBERGER: Hi, [INAUDIBLE] the other oceanic corrections program and [INAUDIBLE] the Cascadian option. So [INAUDIBLE] so methane gas [INAUDIBLE] sea floor and rises up to the ocean [INAUDIBLE] or the [INAUDIBLE] Ocean. But this methane can also rise for the seep ecosystems that usually consist [INAUDIBLE] of [INAUDIBLE] things and also seep bumps. If the methane is getting oxidized within the sediments, it can form carbonite, in particular this carbonite top ground [INAUDIBLE]. And so temperature and the pressure conditions, it is stable as hydrate and stores of [INAUDIBLE] as hydrate. So in the [INAUDIBLE] this hydrate. So you see, this yellow bit here is representing the temperature and pressure conditions that the hydrate is stable. So if you heat the hydrate up, it's getting unstable. And it dissociates to methane gas and water. Same thing if you depressurize it, let's say like a landslide or something. But again, you release the carbons [INAUDIBLE] ocean. And this could be a match. And then we have the water temperature of about five degrees. And then this corresponds to a upper limit of the hydrate stability zone at around 500 meters. So a few words about the reservoir from hydrates. So they are about 1800 gigatons of carbon stored in solid hydrate. That is about 1/5 of the total reservoir of carbon. And what is not taken into account here is the free gas that is sitting underneath the hydrate or sediment pockets. So all this can be released to the seep. So let's go straight into the motivation for all of that at the Cascadia Margin. So natural hazards and global warming cause changes in the ocean but also at seafloor. And so it's very timely to generate a baseline that we can compare future changes. So we want to know how many of the seeps are around right now. And how they actually look like. Then the other motivation for our Cascadia Margin work is that large areas of the Margin are still unmapped, like for co-registered data of bathymetry, backscatter and also the water column data, meaning that water column data looking at [INAUDIBLE] rising up from the sea floor, so with this map here contributing to the US EEZ Seabed 2030 goal but also can get some input from studies of methane flux to the global carbon budget. Then the third motivation is very few of these methane seep Cascadia Margin work estimates studies at the seafloor for the chemical, biological and geological composition and charaterizations. By doing this, we can assess the impact of seeps on marine ecosystems, fish habitat, but also in inform about resources. So here is the analysis. So when we started our work in Cascadia Margin in 2016, there were only about 200 bubble streams locations known. Then by looking at the ten new data sets, some of that, we actually measured the generating then all of the data mining and another big collaboration from NOAA Ocean Exploration Research. So we have now the knowledge of 2,700 bubble streams located. And this is only at about 50% of the seafloor looked at by coverage space or co-registered data of a water column and seafloor. And from all of the 2,700, [INAUDIBLE] visiting about 5% [INAUDIBLE], and actually study it properly. So, here you see a depth distribution profile of all these methane sites. So you see there presence [INAUDIBLE] but there is a big peak around this 500 meters. This corresponds to the off limit of the hydrate stability zone. So it's important to keep that in mind, and to study in one for this area thorough. So, what we have done is get a little bit more information about the hydrate. Because of the affiliate of the stability zone, we have to get better hydrate sample. This sampler is allowing us to collect hydrate without any contamination of air, or losing any gas. So it's a gas type sampler. And with that, we can do noble gas studies. And with this noble gas study, we try to figure out a finger-printing method that gives us information about formation and dissolution of the hydrate. So this is a short outlook of what we wanted to do in the next year or two years at the Cascadia Margin. So [INAUDIBLE] would like to go back and visit more sites to get a better distribution of the seeps, the knowledge and sea how reaction looking at the seafloor chemistry of geology, biology. So the cognition depth range but also the latitude. And then we want to do more mapping, like filling out a little bit more of the 50% that's still missing. There are many other groups that want this as well. And as a third thing, we would like to keep going with graphing of development of the new site for the hydrates sample but also working on the method and science, as well as taking our research for a little bit more autonomously using AUVs with census and method improvement. Thank you. [APPLAUSE] SPEAKER 2: Michelle, of all the speeches, I really want two things. I get a lot of what activities you are doing. [INAUDIBLE] I really like to hear two things. One, how novel, how much leadership are you showing in the skill when you're doing this? Will the world continue to spin-- and it may be you're doing work, you adding 5% to what goes on. And that's an acceptable answer. But if it's more than that, I'd really like to know. Second, this is particularly for the group that's coming on this afternoon. The group that came in this morning was telling us about things, it's very obvious to me who the clientele is. But who is going to use the product and what decisions they're going to make? When talking about tracers, I can see it, but I got to work a little bit too hard to make a connection myself. I'd rather if you would tell me, who are you supplying this information to, and how are they using it? TAMARA BAUMBERGER: [INAUDIBLE] going into management. [INAUDIBLE] But because just so much unknown to it at the seafloor, so you actually don't know what [INAUDIBLE] being provided without doing this, but I know much less about what's actually going on on the seafloor. So by doing what they are doing, we're kind of opening the window to what is getting into the seawater from the seafloor. And then who is using that? It's, for example, when you decide on a fish habitat, like making decisions about which area should be protected. [INAUDIBLE] But also into the mining areas. It's about giving the information for people to make informed decisions for their management. And you benefit from that. MICHELLE MCCLURE: So we can explore this further during the discussion time.