ChEss Home
ChEss (Chemosynthitic Ecosystem Science) is a field project of the Census of Marine Life programme (CoML). The main aim of ChEss is to determine the biogeography of deep-water chemosynthetic ecosystems at a global scale and to understand the processes driving these ecosystems. ChEss addresses the main questions of CoML on diversity, abundance and distribution of marine species, focusing on deep-water reducing environments such as hydrothermal vents, cold seeps, whale falls, sunken wood and areas of low oxygen that intersect with continental margins and seamounts.
News
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Meetings• 4th International Symposium on Chemosynthesis-Based Ecosystems Okinawa, Japan. 29th June to 3rd July 2009.[Link to website ] • Melting, Magma, Fluids and Life: Challenges for the next generation of scientific ocean drilling into the Oceanic Lithosphere NOCS, UK 27th - 29th July 2009 [Link to website ] • International Workshop: Geological and (bio)chemical processes at cold seeps - Challenges in recent and ancient systems. Varna, Bulgaria. 28-30th September 2009. [Link to webpage] • General Assembly of the European Geosciences Union. Session: Methane in aquatic sediments: sources, chemical interactions, fluxes and biotopes. Vienna, Austria. 19 - 24th April 2009. [Link to 1st Circular] • IPY Oslo Science Conference Oslo, Norway 8 - 12 June 2010 [Link to website] • 12th Deep-Sea Biology Symposium Askja, Natural Science Building, Reykjavík, Iceland. 7-11 June 2010. • Workshop on ‘Meiofauna from chemosynthetic deep-sea environments’ in conjunction with the 14th International Meiofauna Conference. Ghent University August, 17 2010 [link to website] |
November 2009: MAR-ECO announces the new Peter Boyle book: Life in the Mid Atlantic. 
July 2009: The ChEss special session at the 4th International Symposium on Chemosynthetic-Based Ecosystems, Okinawa, Japan was well attended and a great success. The keynote speaker was Sabine Gollner, one of the ChEss travel grant award winners and a TAWNI participant from 2006-7. 
June 2009: The final ChEss SSC held on 28th June in Okinawa was well attended and most productive. Discussions were mostly based upon preparations and progress for the ChEss synthesis products. 
July 2009: ChEss Co-Chair Chris German talks about the exploration of hydrothermal vents and the ChEss Programme in a two-part short video 
June 2009: Hydrothermal vent sites in Guaymas Basin and at 21 deg. N on the East Pacific Rise are now by decree Marine Protected Areas in Mexico. For more information please read the news release from Diario Oficial de la Federation (in Spanish): 
16th June 2009: Fourth and final TAWNI grants now awarded. Details of awardees will be available on the TAWNI webpage shortly.
June 2009: Photographic Identification Guide to Larvae at Hydrothermal Vents. This guide, co-funded by ChEss, is now available online at:
April 2009: Call for Transfer of Knowledge Grants: CAREX opened its second call for Transfer of Knowledge Grants on April 20. These grants will fund short visit of awardees to a research institution outside of their countries. Deadline for application: June 20, 2009. More details: 
April 2009: The International Marine Mining Society (IMMS) are requesting comments on recent revisions to their Environmnetal Mining Code
April 2009: Costa Rica Rocks! ChEss SSC member, Dr Lisa Levin from Scripps Institute of Oceanography, led an expedition in March to the Costa Rica Margin. During Alvin dives to seeps and OMZs, they discovered a wealth of life, including a YETI CRAB BONANZA!! .
April 2009: JAMSTEC have recently announced the 2009 ChEss prize winner of their art competition "Draw your dreams of the Ocean". The winner, 11 year-old Maiko Abe, receives a copy of the DESEO publication "Deeper than Light" for her entry entitled "Off to explore the deep sea". She will also participate a cruise to Sagami Bay this August to visit a cold seep site or a whale fall.
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April 2009: The Handbook of Hydrothermal Vent Fauna has been sold out. There is now a link for downloading the entire book for free, subdivided into individual chapters. Follow this link to download (ensure you are in Austrian language on website): [
April 2009: Online webcast recording of Morss Colloquium "Deep-Sea Mining of Seafloor Massive Sulfides: A reality of Science and Society in the 21st Century" held at WHOI on 2nd April 2009. This followed the ChEss -sponsored Science Workshop on 1st April 
February 2009: ChEss awards 16 student travel grants to attend the 4th International Symposium on Chemosynthesis-Based Ecosystems, Japan. [
January 2009: First ChEsSo (ChEss in the Southern Ocean) Cruise Underway and exciting results are emerging! Follow the cruise by clicking on the following link to the Classroom@Sea website. 
January 2009: ChEss Workshop Report: Siboglinidae: a model system for the understanding of evolution, adaptive radiation, microbial symbioses and ecology at extreme environments is now available for download: 
![[Link to group photo].](Images/okinawa_ssc.JPG){kind=link}
