This award will support a team of US researchers to conduct a planning meeting in Costa Rica. The purpose of the meeting is to develop a science plan for a US-Costa Rica multidisciplinary research project aimed at understanding the processes that form Earth's continents. The PI of the project is Dr. Vadim Levin of Rutgers University. His Costa Rican collaborators are: Dr. Teresita Aguilar, Chairwoman and Dr. Percy Denier, professor of the Geology Department of the University of Costa Rica, and Dr. Guilermo Alvarado, head of the Seismology and Volcanology division within the Costa Rican Power Authority.
The research project to be discussed at the meeting will attempt to understand a fundamental problem in Earth science -- how continents are formed, and whether new continental fragments are being created today. Costa Rica is considered ideally suited to be a "natural laboratory" for investigating continental formation and evolution processes. The planned project will provide a venue for a truly integrated (multidisciplinary and international) research effort aimed at solving one of the fundamental problems in our field. Also, it will offer an excellent setting for training future scientists, both in US and in Costa Rica.
