This proposal will provide partial travel support for graduate students, postdocs, and junior faculty members from the US to attend the Conference on the Geophysics of Slab Dynamics to be held in the Jeju Island, South Korea, from August 19 to August 22nd, 2012. All participants receiving support are required to present a talk or a poster.
Conference is aimed to provide a holistic examination of subduction processes by discussing megathrust earthquakes and tsunami modeling, subduction dynamics and mantle convection, fluids in subduction systems, rheology and slab dynamics, seismic imaging of subducting slabs and induced mantle flow, and subduction and tectonics. The program includes a field trip aimed to provide a brief introduction of the Jeju Island geology. The Jeju island is a volcanic island recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage site for its spectacular lava tubes.
This proposal will contribute to the development of the emerging scientists of the field by providing them with the opportunity to meet and interact with leading national and international researchers, gaining deeper understanding and broader perspective of the field, and forming the basis for future collaborations.
. A group of 30-40 scientists from the US, Japan, Korea and Europe converged to spend three days discussing the latest results from the study of subduting plates ranging from tsunami generation to the ultimate fate of subducted material. Below is a brief summary of the results. Scientists who study the subduction of Earth's tectonic plate on the scale of hundreds to thousands of kilometers do not normally interact with the scientists who study deformation near the surface of a subduction zone (e.g., earthquakes, movement on faults, generation of tsunamis). The main goal of the Conference on the Geophysics of Slab Dynamics was to begin to bridge that gap. Participants at Jeju reached a consensus on moving toward integrating near?surface processes into subduction zone numerical models, based on the substantial progress in our ability to integrate crustal evolution into computational models of subduction. With advances in computational power and numerical algorithms, heterogeneities below the 1 kilometer scale, which were only a decade ago completely unthinkable, are now possible. While statistical analyses are important for testing hypotheses regarding the earthquake events, the limited number of the largest earthquakes makes the statistical approach inapplicable. What is needed are more detailed, site?specific analysis of the deformation at subduction zones with tsunami observations and numerical modeling providing additional strong constraints on tsunami generation. Over the past decade, progress in geodynamic numerical modeling has moved us closer to simulating short? and long?term processes, with a resolution of tens of meters near thrust faults. However, it is an open question whether this will help us understand how large earthquakes result from plate convergence. In order to make progress on these issues there needs to be an ongoing dialogue between researchers in these areas. A followup meeting is currently in the development stages and all of the talks are on youtube and can be found by googling "youtube geophysics of slab dynamics". A special American Geophysical Union monograph soliciting papers related to the conference topic.
