9614776 Nabelek This award will provide support to strengthen multi-national collaboration for a project being planned to study active mountain building along the Himalayan-Tibetan collision zone. The project entails extensive fieldwork in Nepal, Tibet (China), and India; and will involve eight collaborating institutions from Nepal, China, India, France, and the U.S., with the Oregon State University and University of Illinois as lead-institutions. An initial proposal of this project was submitted to the Continental Dynamics program of the Earth Sciences Division at the NSF in June 1996. Scientific aspects of the reviews were generally positive. However, it became apparent that the international collaborative aspects need to be further bolstered. This award will support a trip to each of the collaborating countries in order to clearly define the responsibilities of each institution and to obtain official documentation of cost-sharing from each country. The principal investigators expect the trip to result in a well- orchestrated, multi-national collaboration, ultimately increasing the effectiveness of the project while lowering the cost. The Division of International Programs (India, Nepal and China) has provided support for this project. ***
