IPGP a partner in three Equipex+ projects selected by PIA3

More than 130 projects were submitted in response to this call for expressions of interest launched by the French government. The international jury selected 50 projects (32 with an A rating and 18 with an A+ rating), which will share a total budget of €422m. The IPGP is a major partner in 3 of these projects.

• The MARMOR project (Marine Advanced geophysical Research equipment and Mayotte multidisciplinary Observatory for research and Response) aims to develop advanced marine geophysical research equipment and a multidisciplinary observatory for research and monitoring in Mayotte.
  
  This project, led by Ifremer, with numerous French academic and research partners, including the IPGP, should provide the French scientific community with new mobile and cabled equipment needed to study land deformation, seismicity, tsunamis, volcanism and key environmental issues in oceanic and coastal areas, by extending terrestrial observation capabilities to the marine domain. The project also includes the construction of a multidisciplinary seafloor and water column observatory to monitor the ongoing submarine seismo-volcanic crisis, which began in May 2018 off Mayotte.
  
  The Marmor project, for which the funding requested via PIA3 amounts to €19.9 million, is coordinated at the IPGP by Arnaud Lemarchand and involves teams from the volcanological and seismological observatories, marine geosciences, seismology, volcanic systems, lithospheric tectonics and mechanics, geomicrobiology and the IPGP data centre.

• The GAIA Data project, led by the CNRS, presents a distributed data and services infrastructure for observing, modelling and understanding the Earth system, biodiversity and the environment.
  
  GAIA Data aims to develop and implement an integrated distributed data and services platform covering the entire data cycle (observation, modelling), from acquisition to multiple uses (qualification/validation, storage, knowledge processing/extraction, products, services, etc.).This project, supported by three research infrastructures (Data Terra, which is responsible for coordination, CLIMERI-France and PNDB), will develop services accessible via portals enabling inter- and trans-disciplinary research and processing based on multi-source data acquired by satellites, ships, aeroplanes, drones, submersibles, balloons, in situ devices, inventories, observatories and experiments, as well as on data from reference simulations for scientific communities in the Earth system and environment field, and for public and socio-economic players.
  
  The GAIA Data project, for which funding of €19.6 million has been requested under the PIA3 programme, is coordinated at the IPGP by Claudio Satriano and involves teams from the IPGP data centre, S-CAPAD and ForM@Ter.
  > For more information: https: //www.data-terra.org/pia-3/

• The TERRA FORMA project, also supported by the CNRS, aims to design and test in-situ observatories for territories, providing a new multi-messenger vision, combining sensor viewpoints on human, biotic and abiotic dynamics.
  
  The Anthropocene, a new geological period in which human actions are modifying the Earth’s habitability for all forms of life, poses new scientific challenges that fragmented approaches cannot resolve, due to the complex interactions between humans, living organisms and non-living organisms. The development of a holistic approach on a scale that is relevant to local research and action requires the development of new, intelligent sensors. Terra Forma’s aim is to develop sensors for water, soil, air, humans and living organisms to ‘terraform’ the territories of the Anthropocene. Terra Forma responds to both fundamental scientific questions and the demands of local stakeholders concerning soil capital, water resources, biodiversity and landscape integrity.
  
  The TERRA FORMA project, for which funding of €11 million has been requested through the PIA3 programme, is a continuation of the CRITEX équipex project. It is coordinated at the IPGP by Jérôme Gaillardet and involves the OZCAR infrastructure, the geomicrobiology team and the Extralab company set up by a former IPGP doctor.