The ICDP Science Conference “Imaging the Past to Imagine our Future” with 180 attendees from 26 countries was held November 11 - 14, 2013 in Potsdam at the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences. The main goal of the conference was to discuss the future direction of the International Continental Scientific Drilling Program ICDP and to define a new ICDP Science Plan to bridge the gap between understanding of geoprocesses and societal needs. The conference furthermore reviewed past and present ICDP activities, highlighted achievements and discussed options for a better visibility of ICDP.

Given the high level of interest to follow the conference, keynote talks and discussions are online available via live video streaming through the ICDP conference website (conference2013.icdp-online.org). GFZ employees were invited for active partaking via live chat, twitter and email (see conference2013.icdp-online.org for details).

ICDP serves the scientific community through financial and operational support for international high-profile projects which needs continental drilling to achieve their goals. Since the founding of ICDP in 1996, its rapid development was closely linked with the GFZ. More than 100 GFZ researchers are or have been involved in ICDP projects so far. ICDP was founded by the former director of the GFZ, Prof. Emmermann. Since 2011, the ICDP Executive Committee is chaired by Prof. Horsfield.

ICDP’s Operational Support Group OSG, a team of scientists, engineers and technicians, is part of GFZ infrastructure unit “Scientific Drilling”. The OSG supports scientific drilling projects through downhole logging services, data management, and drill core logging and scanning, but offers also advice for planning and execution of drilling projects and carries out training measures.

For more information, visit our new website

http://www.icdp-online.org/