This award supports a US-Pakistan Workshop, "Indo-Asia Continental Collision", to be held in Islamabad, Pakistan, in January 2009. The U.S. organizer is Dr. Shuhab Khan and the foreign organizers are Dr. Khalid Mahmoud and Dr. Abdel S. Khan, both from the Center of Excellence in Mineralogy, University of Balochistan in Quetta, Pakistan and D. Zulfiqar Ahmed, Earth Sciences Department, Quaid-I-Azam University, Islamabad, in Pakistan. The award supports U.S. scientists to attend the workshop to coordinate research in Pakistan, the western margin of the Indo-Asia collision zone, where they will develop ways to test India-Asia plate collision models. Two days of discussion in Islamabad will be followed by several days in the field in the Trans-Indus Ranges (Islamabad, Kohat, Kalabagh) and in the Quetta area, dedicated to selection of detailed study sites and preliminary sampling for specialized geochemical and isotopic studies. One outcome of the workshop will be the development of collaborative proposals for submission to the National Science Foundation.
The workshop will bring together geoscientists from the U.S., Pakistan and Europe and will explore how to combine remote sensing and tomographic studies with geochemical, isotopic, and geochronologic studies on ophiolites and arc volcanics. The group will develop tests of the hypothesis that ophiolites in Pakistan represent remnants of intra-oceanic forearc complexes, related to Indo-Asia collision. Scientists will plan how to use remote sensing, InSAR, GPS and field techniques in studies of the major strike slip faults in this region to assess intra-continental deformation mechanisms resulting from the collision.
Intellectual Merit: A fundamental question facing 21st century geoscientists is how continents evolve. The approach to this broad tectonic question to be taken in the workshop is to integrate field, remote sensing, geochemical and isotopic age studies in Pakistan. This part of the western Himalayas is considered an example of the collision between continents involving an intervening island-arc. One focus of the workshop's research discussion will be on the timing, which is as yet poorly resolved, of ocean opening and closing in the critical area of north and western Pakistan. The workshop is an opportunity to define scientific objectives and launch a coherent collaborative approach. Integrated remote sensing, geochemical and isotopic work on ophiolites and arc rocks in Pakistan should provide significant constraints on our understanding of the timing and nature of the Himalayan collision and related deformational mechanisms.
Broader Impact: The workshop will include graduate students and several early career faculty members, including females, from U.S. and Pakistan. Research programs to be finalized at the workshop will build on current collaborative links in geology, geophysics, geochemistry, and geoscience database development. The collaborative research project will also enhance understanding between US, European and Pakistani scientists.
