The STEMM-CCS project held their first annual meeting from 14-16th March 2017 in Kiel, Germany. The meeting was hosted by GEOMAR, one of the STEMM-CCS partners and took place at the Kunsthalle zu Kiel (Art Gallery).

Kiel Kunsthalle (By VollwertBIT (Own work) [CC BY-SA 2.5 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5)], via Wikimedia Commons

Fifty scientists including PhD students and early career postdocs, and members of the Stakeholder Advisory Board met to review the progress of the project in the first year and discuss plans for the next year. The first day focused on bringing everyone up to date on the work so far in each area of the project. On the second day some members gave more detailed  presentations on some aspects of their work, management issues were discussed and a session was devoted to upcoming research cruise plans.

The STEMM-CCS meeting participants outside the Kunsthalle zu Kiel <span style=

These plans include two STEMM-CCS research cruises; a geophysics and drilling cruise to survey and sample a chimney structure, and a biogeochemical baseline cruise which will involve sediment/habitat mapping of the Goldeneye area. A third cruise, related to STEMM-CCS but funded and organized by the complementary CHIMNEY project will carry out geophysical experiments to determine the internal structure of a North Sea chimney.

On the final day of the meeting, a half day workshop to discuss specific technical aspects of the release experiment was held.

Following the meeting, Tim Dixon from the IEAGHG, one of the STEMM-CCS stakeholder advisory board members, has written an information paper for the IEAGHG which can be read here.