9730222 Silver This Americas Program award will support travel and related expenses for two junior scientists and one graduate student from US, and four scientists from Nicaragua, to participate in a workshop on imaging and modeling the processes occurring on the seismogenic zone of Costa Rica and Nicaragua. The workshop, organized by Dr. Eli Silver, University of California, Santa Cruz, in cooperation with experts from Central America, will take place in San Francisco in December, 1997. Three previous international workshops have recommended Costa Rica-Nicaragua as one of two highest priority regions for focused study on the mechanics of the seismogenic zone in subduction environments. Following that recommendation, the workshop was organized with the goal to better define the nature of the problem, prioritize potential scientific studies, and organize international teams to focus on different aspects of the structure and behavior of the seismogenic zone. There is great international interest in the seismogenic zone and specifically in Central America, and this is a first step in the preparation for deep riser drilling into an active seismogenic zone. ***
