This award is under the International Postdoctoral Fellows Program, which enables U.S. scientists and engineers to conduct three to twelve months of research at foreign centers of proven excellence. The program's awards provide opportunities for joint research, and the use of unique or complementary facilities, expertise and experimental conditions abroad. This award will support a twelve-month postdoctoral research visit by Dr. Malcolm S. Pringle to work with Professor Dr. Hubert Staudigel at the Free University in the Netherlands. The Cretaceous volcanism of the western Pacific is thought to be an ancient analog of the anomalous intraplate volcanism seen in the southern Pacific today, and may have a causal relationship with the systematic, global changes which culminated in the Mid-Cretaceous Greenhouse. The proposed research project will more fully characterize the distribution in space and time of this volcanism and its mantle source, and investigate whether this volcanism is the result of one large "Superplume" or a series of smaller, more discrete events. The principal tools of this study will be radiometric age determinations, to determine the original position of each site of Cretaceous volcanism, and radiogenic isotope analyses, to characterize the mantle source at that particular location and time. The award recommendation provides funds to cover international travel to the Netherlands, an allowance to attend research-related meetings and a stipend for twelve months.
