This proposal will provide partial support to U.S. graduate students, postdocs and young scientists to attend the workshop "Properties and Processes of Crustal Fault Zones" to be held in the Erice, Sicily (Italy), from May 18 to May 24, 2013. No tenured faculty will be supported with these funds, and priority will be given to underrepresented groups.
The goal of the workshop is to bring together the leading experts from various sub-disciplines of earth sciences, material science, and physics to facilitate the exchange and integration of ideas, methods and results across the typical disciplinary boundaries in an attempt to provide a holistic examination of the structure and evolution of fault zones in relation to earthquakes properties and generated ground motion.
The proposed funding provides an important opportunity for U.S. students and early career scientists to meet and interact with their peers and with the leaders in the various fields in an informal setting, gaining a deeper and broader understanding, and forming the basis for future international cross-disciplinary collaborations.
This grant helped support the participation of U.S-based scientists in the May 18-24, 2013, workshop on Properties and Processes of Crustal Fault Zones, in the Ettore Majorana Foundation and Centre for Scientific Culture, Erice, Sicily. As shown in the meeting website <http://istituto.ingv.it/resources/conference-archive/conferences-2013/Fault_Zones_Workshop/>, the workshop brought together seismologists, geologists, geodesists, rock-mechanicists and physicists to discuss the state-of-the art in techniques, observations and theoretical frameworks that elucidate and explain the internal structure and evolutionary processes of crustal fault zones. The workshop was attended by 102 scientists, with about half consisting of students, postdocs and early career scientists, representing 51 institutions from 14 countries. The meeting provided an excellent multi-disciplinary forum for the exchange of ideas, methods and results across the typical disciplinary boundaries addressing different aspects of fault zones. Many participants in the meeting, both young and senior, commented that this was the best (or one of the best) scientific meetings they ever attended. In addition to providing state-of-the art information on Properties and Processes of Crustal Fault Zones, the workshop provided an important opportunity for participating early career U.S. students and scientists to interact with each other and with senior researchers from all over the world. The benefits to those participating extend beyond technical scientific learning and will hopefully have long lasting positive effects on their careers.
