Bremen International Graduate School for Marine Sciences
Nele Behrendt
Report of GLOMAR PhD student Nele Behrendt about her participation in the EGU General Assembly 2022 from 23 - 27 May 2022
The EGU General Assembly 2022 in Vienna was held as a hybrid EGU meeting which took place between the 23rd and 27th May 2022 and hosted over 791 sessions with 12,322 presentations, according to the EGU. The presentations were held either pre-recorded, online or in-person by the 7,315 colleagues which attend at the EGU in Vienna, or the 7,002 virtual attendees. My presentation was entitled “The Mediterranean Ridge 25 years after ODP Leg 160 drilling: New discoveries on mud volcanism and fluid-rock interactions in the Olimpi mud volcano field” and was included in the “Fluid Flow in the upper crust: geysers, hydrothermal vents, mud volcanoes and cold seeps” session, which was a perfect fit for my contribution. The session was Co-hosted by a colleague and two further scientists, which I already met in Azerbaijan in 2019 when I participated at the summer school on mud volcanism in petroleum system.
Since my presentation was the first presentation on Monday morning, I had no chance to compare myself to others or get nervous. Due to the high number of participants, the presentation time was reduced to 7 minutes including questions. The implementation of the given time slot varied from session to session and a generally applicable implementation would have made sense here. The amount of input given in the time slots strongly varied in each session. However, a major part of the presentations within the session in which my presentation was included were pre-recorded and the speakers didn’t participate on-site or on-line, which made a direct exchange impossible. I would have preferred further poster sessions since it would have been easier to get in contact and to chat about science. Technical difficulties, especially at the beginning of the EGU, have cost a lot of time and shortened the time for questions.
Due to the broad spectrum of sessions, I was able to participate on many different presentations and often were able to find a reference to my own work. I very much enjoyed the sessions about Mars Science and Exploration.
Apart from the EGU, Vienna is a beautiful city to explore with many opportunities to get great coffee. Due to the lovely weather, we spend lunch at the Danube, which is located close to the location of the EGU. I don’t regret attending at the EGU, but I think that a smaller conference with more specific topics and mainly in-person attendance would be more conducive to my work.
I am very thankful to GLOMAR to support me and giving me the opportunity to experience such an important conference in-person in Vienna. I enjoyed the broad spectrum of sessions and looking forward to the next in-person meetings.