This award supports a workshop to plan for U.S. marine geology and geophysics research in the Arctic Ocean. A group of US geologists and geophysicists will be assembled for a workshop at the Wood Hole Oceanographic Institution, in order to draft a plan for US progress in Arctic Ocean geosciences. Specifically the workshop will be aimed at: 1) Gauging the level of interest of the US marine geology and geophysics community in addressing geoscience problems in the Arctic Ocean; 2) Defining the important geodynamic and paleo-oceanographic problems in the Arctic Ocean; 3) Proposing site-specific research objectives and geophysical and drilling techniques to solve these problems; 4) Addressing the region of and method of seismic site survey, which is essential to the success of future scientific drilling; and 5) Drafting of a "US Plan for Geology and Geophysics in the Arctic Ocean" for use as a long term planning document by the National Science Foundation and other US agencies engaged in funding Arctic research. ***
