9530886 Williams Recent political changes in the Republic of Mongolia make it possible for the first time in modern history to begin the establishment of long-term cooperative programs to study a wide variety of important scientific problems in this important region of Asia. In order to begin this process, NSF requested the P.I.s to organize a Planning Workshop for American scientists to explore and develop opportunities for cooperative research with Mongolian scientists. The purpose of the workshop is to provide the broader U.S. scientific community, including governmental and non- governmental agencies, with a coordinated science plan for future large and small scale scientific investigations in the Republic of Mongolia. Several important questions to be addressed by the workshop include: o the level of biological endemism in lakes of the Hovsgol and Darhad Grabens of northern Mongolia and the relationships between the biota of the Selenga River in northern Mongolia which connects Hovsgol Nuur with Lake Baikal; o the tectonic and structural relationship of these lake systems and surrounding tectonic terrains to the Himalayan orogeny, the uplift of the Tibetan Plateau and the reactivation of the Baikal Rift Zone including the evolution of Lake Baikal and the climatic regime of Asia; o the surface ruptures and deformation associated with great earthquakes in Mongolia to understand the process of intracontinental mountain building. ***
