The world’s oceans cover about 70 percent of the Earth’s surface. They represent a highly complex system and are always good for new discoveries. If you want to know what a complex role they play in system Earth, you can’t ignore the MARUM – Center for Marine Environmental Sciences at the University of Bremen, where teams of international researchers carry out pioneering research. Using state-of-the-art deep-sea robots and drilling equipment, for example, they research our planet’s climate history and the diverse biological and geochemical processes going on under the sea bed.
A special feature of MARUM is the core repository. It boasts 250,000 drill cores collected in the course of almost 90 research voyages in the Atlantic, Arctic, Mediterranean and Black Sea. If you were to line up the individual core samples, they would stretch over a length of almost 100 miles. Bremen is one of just three such repositories worldwide: The other two are located in Kochi (Japan) and Texas (USA). All three belong to the "International Ocean Discovery Program" (IODP), a research collaboration that among others includes Japan, the USA and a consortium of European states. The drill cores enable scientists to explore the Earth’s geology and climatic history.
Meanwhile, MARUM counts as one of the most important marine research facilities in the world. Since 2001, it has been funded as a Research Center by the German Research Foundation and since 2007 as a cluster called "The Ocean in the System Earth” within the framework of the Excellence Initiative. For students and early-career researchers, it has become a breeding ground for international talent. Renowned researchers from all over the world come to Bremen to research, teach and gain further experience and qualifications. In 2018, MARUM became the University of Bremen’s first “Research Faculty”. With the high-profile research area "Marine, Polar and Climate Research" it covers one of the five high-profile research areas that comprise the Bremen science system.
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