GEOCHEMICAL EARTH REFERENCE MODEL (GERM) - DESCRIPTION OF THE INITIATIVE

The Geochemical Earth Reference Model (GERM) initiative is a grass roo t effort with the goals of establishing a community consensus on a che mical characterization of the Earth, its major reservoirs, and the flu ?;es between them. The GERM initiative will provide a review of availa ble scientific constraints for: (1) the composition of all major chemi cal reservoirs of the present-day Earth, from core to atmosphere; (2) present-day fluxes between reservoirs; (3) the Earth's chemical and is otopic evolution since accretion; and (4) the chemical and isotopic ev olution of seawater as a record of global tectonics and climate, Even though most of the constraints for the GERM will be drawn from chemica l data sets, some data will have to come from other disciplines, such as geophysics, nuclear physics, and cosmochemistry. GERM also includes a diverse chemical and physical data base and computer codes that are useful for our understanding of how the Earth works as a dynamic chem ical and physical system. The GERM initiative is developed in an open community discussion on the World Wide Web (http://www-ep.es.llnl.gov/ germ/germ-home.html) that is moderated by editors with responsibilitie s for different reservoirs, fluxes, data bases, and other scientific o r technical aspects. These editors have agreed to lay out an initial, strawman GERM for their respective sections and to moderate community discussions leading to a first, preliminary consensus. The development of the GERM began with an initial workshop in Lyon, France in March, 1996. Since then, the GERM has continued to be developed on the Intern et, punctuated by workshops and special sessions at professional meeti ngs. A second GERM workshop will be held in La Jolla, CA USA on March 10-13, 1998. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All nights reserved.