This is a workshop to bring together the Users of Experimental Rock Deformation data with the Practitioners of Experimental Rock Deformation. Users are those who make direct use of laboratory data in models, calculations, or in the interpretation of geological or geophysical observations. Practitioners are those actively engaged in laboratory-based experimental research on the mechanical properties of Earth materials; some Practitioners are also Users. The purpose of the workshop is to assess the scientific and technical needs of these groups and to begin a process of responding to those needs. There are important research objectives in geomechanics that can be identified, from both a scientific and societal perspective, and there are recognized needs for technological and community resources in order to meet the scientific needs. The workshop will focus on geomechanics of the relatively shallow portion of the Earth. This will include the mechanics of the upper mantle and lower-to-mid crust, the seismogenic zone, accretionary wedges, energy- and waste-related subsurface systems, and the role of thermalhydro-chemical processes in all these environments.
The workshop will support attendance by early career scientists and students. The results will be broadly disseminated and will produce a strategic, community-building document for rock deformation.
Experimental rock deformation explores the fundamental physics of processes that determine the mechanical behavior of earth materials. It also provides essential data in many other areas of geoscience, including structural geology, hydrology, sedimentology, seismology, earthquake source physics, geodesy, mantle geodynamics, planetary dynamics, energy resources engineering and waste repository management. Many important scientific and societally-relevant research programs require knowledge of physical processes and data that can only be provided by laboratory experiments. Knowledge and data acquired from experiments even have important implications for understanding the rate and extent of sea-level rise that will occur due to anthropogenic climate change. In contrast to similar groups in Europe and East Asia, the experimental rock-deformation community in the US consists of a relatively small number of scientists primarily housed at a few universities. To maintain the vitality of this field, expanded opportunities for younger experimentalists are sorely needed. One difficulty faced by young experimentalists is that the specialized equipment used in rock deformation studies is typically custom-built. Early-career scientists often cannot obtain commercially the equipment they need to conduct their research, hindering their professional development. The complexity of building and maintaining unique, sophisticated equipment and its lack of commercial availability also means that it can be difficult to operate a productive, efficient experimental lab without technical support staff. Unfortunately, technical support is unavailable in many labs in the US. A workshop for the experimental rock deformation community was held in Boston on August 16-19, 2012, following some similar but smaller preliminary meetings. It was sponsored primarily by the NSF under this workshop grant, with additional support from the DOE, the SCEC, and in-kind support by the USGS. A white paper summarizing the active discussions at the workshop and the outcomes is available (https://brownbox.brown.edu/download.php?hash=0b854d11). Those attending included practitioners of experimental rock deformation, i.e., those who conduct laboratory experiments, as well as users of the data provided by practitioners, namely field geologists, seismologists, geodynamicists, earthquake modelers, and scientists from the oil and gas industry. A considerable fraction of those attending were early-career scientists. The discussion initially focused on identifying the most important unsolved scientific problems in all of the research areas represented by the users that experiments would help solve. This initial session was followed by wide-ranging discussions of the most critical problems faced by practitioners, particularly by early-career scientists. The discussion also focused on the need for designing and building the next generation of experimental rock deformation equipment required to meet the identified scientific challenges. The workshop participants concluded that creation of an experimental rock deformation community organization is needed to address many of the scientific, technical, and demographic problems faced by this community. A decision was made to hold an organizational meeting of this new organization in San Francisco on December 1-2, 2012, just prior to the Fall Meeting of the AGU. The community has decided to name this new organization "Deformation Experimentation at the Frontier Of Rock and Mineral research" or DEFORM. As of May 1, 2013, 64 institutions have asked to be members of DEFORM. Its Mission Statement: DEFORM exists to facilitate experimental rock deformation research that furthers our understanding of fundamental processes and properties. Support and development of communal experimental facilities that foster innovative science are our core objectives. We enable research relevant to understanding deformation in the natural environment and encourage the participation of new users from all scientific disciplines. The next steps include submitting one or more proposals to NSF to support the DEFORM mission. Requests are likely to include proposing ways 1) to create a summer school that would teach fundamentals of rock mechanics and experimental techniques, 2) to provide a platform for the initiation of collaborative research projects, 3) to develop community-accessible experimental facilities, 4) to provide technical personnel available to the community at large, and 5) to develop solutions for archiving and sharing data, experimental and apparatus designs, and other community resources.
