This award will support a small workshop on arc-continent collisions and the evolution of the continental crust. The workshop will be held at Arizona State University and the overall goal of the workshop is to develop a research strategy for understanding the temporal and spatial evolution of the ongoing collision in Taiwan, one of the world's classic orogenic belts. The Continental Dynamics Program is funding a large multidisciplinary project in Taiwan (TAIGER) that will carry out extensive geophysical surveys which will provide better definition of the crustal-scale features in the subduction-collision transition. What is missing, however, is a synthetic view of the orogen that integrates crustal-scale processes with outcrop-scale kinematics and exhumation and surface processes through both time and space.
The workshop will establish a research plan to develop this synthetic view of the orogenic processes. The workshop will include plans for fostering national and international collaborations and for integrating undergraduates into international geoscience research.
