A four-day international workshop and conference titled "The Four-Dimensional Framework of Continental Crust - Integrating Processes Through Time" is being held in Oak Ridge, Tennessee in July of 2004. Broad multidisciplinary topics being addressed include: temporal variation in physical and chemical processes that generate continental crust; processes of deep and shallow crust generation and their temporal variation; evolution of the Moho; fluid interaction processes; magma generation and emplacement processes/models; metamorphic processes; deformational processes leading to new continental crust; processes driving crustal rheological changes; mountain building processes; supercontinent formation; sedimentary processes in crustal evolution; role of biological systems in crustal evolution. Graduate students, young and mid-career scientists, and senior researchers are attending semiformal invited and volunteered presentations intended to generate discussion and debate. Presentations emphasize processes, concepts, new ideas supported by state-of-the-art data, and future research directions. The closing session is addressing frontiers in crustal science, future opportunities from EarthScope for understanding crustal evolution, and nuturing geoscience discovery through information technology. A five-day post-conference excursion is traversing the southern Appalachian Mountains. A short white paper summarizing current and possible future state-of-the-art crustal geoscience research and a proceedings volume are being published.
