This PIRE (integrated international research and education) project joins the U.S. and Chinese partners in a five-year project to investigate what causes large intraplate earthquakes in North China and improve understanding of intraplate seismicity in the New Madrid region of the Unit4ed States. The PIRE will fund an extensive program of faculty and student research to jointly image crustal and mantle structure, measure crustal deformation, and explore earthquake physics generally. Mian Liu, Professor in the Department of Geosciences at the University of Missouri, Columbia, leads a partnership with three other U.S. institutions: the University of Oklahoma, University of Colorado, and North Carolina State University. The project will train 23 graduate students, 20 undergraduate students and 50 science teachers on the U.S. side during its five-year course. The Chinese partners are CHEN, Yongshun, Institute of Geophysics at Peking University, WANG, Liangshu, Department of Earth Sciences, Nanjing University, Nanjing, and SHI, Yaolin, College of Earth Sciences, Graduate School of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing. The project will benefit the broader geosciences community through the production of data sets, computer models and curriculum materials.
The project combines geodetic techniques including passive and active seismic imaging, crustal motion (GPS and InSAR), earthquake geology (trenching and marine paleoseismology) and geodynamic modeling. The China Earthquake Administration and associated Chinese scientists contribute a new seismic network, drilling, field support and complementary expertise. The project has a plan for recruiting underrepresented minorities at the student level, and will impact a large number of K-12 science teachers, students and the broader public via workshops, summer institutes, curriculum development, and other outreach activities.
This project is co-funded with two programs in the Directorate for Geosciences: the Opportunities for Enhancing Diversity in the Geosciences (OEDG) program, and the Surface Earth Processes Program of the Division of Earth Sciences.
