NATO Advanced Research Institutes are designed to explore unre- solved
problems. By focusing complementary expertise from various disciplines
onto one unifying theme, they approach old problems in new ways. In line
with this goal of the NATO Science Committee, and with substantial
support from the u.s. Office of Naval Research and the Seabed Assessment
Program of the U. S. National Science Founda- tion, such a Research
Institute on the theme of Coastal Upwelling and Its Sediment Record was
held september 1-4, 1981, in Vilamoura, Portugal. The theme implies a
modification of uniformitarian thinking in earth science. Expectations
were directed not so much towards find- ing the key to the past as
towards exploring the limits of interpret- ing the past based on present
upwelling oceanography. Coastal up- welling and its imprint on sediments
are particularly well-suited for such a scientific inquiry. The oceanic
processes and conditions characteristic of upwelling are well understood
and are a well- packaged representation of ocean science that are
familiar to geolo- gists, just as the magnitude of bioproduction and
sedimentation in upwelling regimes --among other biological and
geological processes-- have made oceanographers realize that the bottom
has a feedback role for their models.