9632364 Gordon This grant provides $91,581 as one-half support of the costs of acquiring hardware and software to upgrade Rice University's Department of Geology and Geophysics computer system used for geophysical research including global plate motion modeling, processing and analyzing seismic reflection and refraction data and analyses of paleomagnetic data. Specific equipment will include 4 high-end Ultrasparc1 workstations with expanded memory and disk storage, 4 lower end Sparc5 workstations, 1 Macintosh Power PC computer for graphics, Western Omega's 3-D seismic processing software and additional peripherals. This system will allow continued development of the NUVEL-1 global plate motion model which requires extensive analyses and inversion of marine geophysical and seismological data together with analyses of very- long baseline interferometery (VLBI)data. The continued development and refinement of this model will be os significant worldwide interest to the geoscientific community with interests in active tectonic processes. Additional research that will; be conducted using this distributed network of computers will include seismic investigation of the structure and tectonics of plate margins and mountain belts including the San Andreas system, the Basin and Range Province, the Mendocino Triple Junction and the Brooks Range of Alaska and geodynamic modeling of the rifting of continental lithosphere. ***
