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Marine gateways play a critical role in the exchange of water, heat, salt, and nutrients between oceans and seas. Changes in gateway geometry can significantly alter both the pattern of global ocean circulation and climate. Today, the volume of dense water supplied by Atlantic–Mediterranean exchange through the Gibraltar Strait is among the largest in the global ocean. For the past 5 My, this overflow has generated a saline plume at intermediate depths in the Atlantic that deposits distinctive contouritic sediments and contributes to the formation of North Atlantic Deep Water. This single gateway configuration only developed in the Early Pliocene. During the Miocene, two narrow corridors linked the Mediterranean and Atlantic: one in northern Morocco and the other in southern Spain. Progressive restriction and closure of these corridors resulted in extreme salinity fluctuations in the Mediterranean and the precipitation of the Messinian Salinity Crisis salt giant. International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP) Expedition 401 is the offshore drilling component of a Land-2-Sea drilling proposal, Investigating Miocene Mediterranean–Atlantic Gateway Exchange (IMMAGE). Its aim is to recover a complete record of Atlantic–Mediterranean exchange from its Late Miocene inception to its current configuration by targeting Miocene offshore sediments on either side of the Gibraltar Strait. Miocene cores from the two precursor connections now exposed on land will be obtained by future International Continental Scientific Drilling Program (ICDP) campaigns. 

Carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) composites are uniquely essential materials in the aerospace, automobile, energy, sporting, and an increasing number of other industries. Consequently, we are amassing an accumulation of CFRP waste latent in value. Electrochemical techniques to recycle carbon fiber reinforced polymers have recently emerged as viable methods to remove the composite matrix from these materials and recover fibers. In many of these techniques, the composite is immersed in a solvent and acts as an electrochemical anode while a voltage is applied to the electrolytic cell. Still, few methods leverage the conductivity of the composite to mediate its own disassembly. We have introduced an electrolytic method that leverages this conductivity to electrolyze acetic acid to form methyl radicals that cleave the C-N bonds of the epoxy matrix and cleanly separate ordered fibers from the matrix. This talk will discuss the motivation and development for this new electrochemical method and explain the chemical mechanism through which it works. 

Marine gateways play a critical role in the exchange of water, heat, salt, and nutrients between oceans and seas. Changes in gateway geometry can significantly alter both the pattern of global ocean circulation and climate. Today, the volume of dense water supplied by Atlantic–Mediterranean exchange through the Gibraltar Strait is among the largest in the global ocean. For the past 5 My, this overflow has generated a saline plume at intermediate depths in the Atlantic that deposits distinctive contouritic sediments and contributes to the formation of North Atlantic Deep Water. This single gateway configuration only developed in the Early Pliocene. During the Miocene, two narrow corridors linked the Mediterranean and Atlantic: one in northern Morocco and the other in southern Spain. Formation of these corridors followed by progressive restriction and closure resulted in extreme salinity fluctuations in the Mediterranean, leading to the precipitation of the Messinian Salinity Crisis salt giant. International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP) Expedition 401 is the offshore drilling component of a Land-2-Sea drilling proposal, Investigating Miocene Mediterranean–Atlantic Gateway Exchange (IMMAGE). Its aim is to recover a complete record of Atlantic–Mediterranean exchange from its Late Miocene inception to its current configuration by targeting Miocene offshore sediments on either side of the Gibraltar Strait. Miocene cores from the two precursor connections now exposed on land will be obtained by future International Continental Scientific Drilling Program (ICDP) campaigns.