Month: February 2015

Colleagues:

We just received news from NSF that they will be funding the workshop in Taiwan, which is great news! Since we just got the official notice, we’ve also decided to extend the application deadline to March 6th.

Looking forward to seeing you in Taiwan,

Tim and Jian-Cheng

Feedbacks and coupling Among Climate, Erosion, and Tectonics during mountain building

Thursday, May 28–Tuesday, June 2, 2015

Taipei, Taiwan

Over the past 25 years, tremendous advances have occurred in understanding the linkages among climate, surface processes, and tectonics. The purpose of this workshop is to take stock of these advances, to identify the challenges that remain, and to set the stage for the next generation of research efforts. The overarching goals are to:

– Assess the current state of understanding of the linkages among climate, tectonics, and landscape evolution.

– Identify research goals that capitalize on interdisciplinary approaches to advance that understanding at a range of spatial and temporal scales.

– Discuss and articulate strategies for the implementation of the research goals.

– Encourage new collaborations between U.S. and Taiwan scientists, and engage early-career researchers.

The lectures and poster presentations associated with the workshop are open to the public. Financial support for international and domestic travel, housing, meals, and field trip expenses, however, is limited to 75 scientists by application, pending support from funding agencies. Groups underrepresented in STEM fields (women, underrepresented minorities, and persons with disabilities) and early-career scientists (students, post-docs, and pre-tenure faculty) are especially encouraged to apply.

Application Deadline: March 6, 2015 (for U.S. participants); March 31, 2015 (for Taiwan participants).

The workshop web site is now active and provides more information about the application process:

We will host a 7-day training workshop at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory for students and early-career scientists who want to gain experience with the analysis of multichannel seismic reflection data from June 22-29, 2015. The workshop will cover the fundamentals of reflection seismology and the full sequence of steps involved in processing raw seismic reflection data into time-migrated images, including geometry and binning, noise suppression, velocity analysis, and migration.  Participants will have extensive hands-on experience processing data with commercial processing software.

In the workshop we will use multichannel seismic reflection data that were acquired in September and October 2014 during the ENAM Community Seismic Experiment offshore North Carolina. The transects image the structure of the rifted continental margin and early oceanic crust as well as the post-rift sedimentary architecture including slides, gas hydrates and salt diapirs.

Left: Seismic data acquisition map for the ENAM Community Seismic Experiment. Top right: example of seismic reflection data over a salt diaper. Bottom right: example of seismic reflection data over oceanic crust.

Interested participants should send a brief statement summarizing why they wish to attend the workshop and a short CV to Anne Bécel (annebcl@ldeo.columbia.edu). Limited travel funds are available for participants.

Application deadline is April 15, 2015.

For more information, contact Anne Bécel (annebcl@ldeo.columbia.edu).

On behalf of the instructor team,

Anne Bécel, LDEO (annebcl@ldeo.columbia.edu)

Donna Shillington, LDEO (djs@ldeo.columbia.edu)

Matthew Hornbach, SMU (mhornbach@smu.edu)

Beatrice Magnani, SMU (mmagnani@mail.smu.edu)

Useful links:

The GeoPRISMS ENAM initiative

The ENAM Community Seismic Experiment project website

Raw MCS data from the ENAM cruise

http://www.marine-geo.org/tools/search/DataSets.php?seismic=MGL1408

Processed MCS data from the ENAM cruise

http://www.ig.utexas.edu/sdc/cruise.php?cruiseIn=mgl1408

Early Career Geoscience Faculty Workshop: Teaching, Research, and Managing Your Career

at The College of William and Mary

http://serc.carleton.edu/NAGTWorkshops/earlycareer2015/index.html

Application deadline: March 18, 2015

If you are in your first three years of a permanent academic position, please apply to join us for a multi-day workshop in a stimulating and resource-rich environment where you will participate in sessions on topics including effective teaching strategies, course design, establishing a research program in a new setting, working with research students, balancing professional and personal responsibilities, and time management. The workshop is offered by NAGT On the Cutting Edge professional development program for geoscience faculty with partial support from the National Science Foundation. Past participants give high praise for this workshop.  Here are a few quotes:

“This workshop is one of the best things I have done for my career!”

“… it is very helpful to form a network of colleagues at other institutions. I think I made some friendships that will last my career.”

“The workshop totally changed my view of teaching from teacher-oriented to student-oriented. It’s no more what I want to teach but what students need to learn or take away from the course. This is the essential point that I will keep in mind when I design course goals, syllabi, in-class activities, assignments, and exams.”

“I am heading back to my institution feeling that I am better equipped to be a more efficient and effective teacher, researcher, colleague, father, husband, and community member.”

WORKSHOP GOALS:

• Learn about setting course goals, strategies for active learning, and methods for assessment.
• Share ideas and strategies for teaching courses.
• Consider successful strategies for maintaining an active research program and advising/supervising undergraduate and/or graduate research students.
• Discuss life as an early-career faculty member and explore ways to balance teaching, research, and service responsibilities.
• Leave with examples of assignments and activities for various courses, strategies for balancing competing demands, a support network of other early career faculty, and a plan for managing your early career as an academic.

The workshop fee of $700 (or $650 for NAGT members) will cover most meals and and accommodations on the William and Mary campus. Participants will pay for some meals, and participants or their home institutions must provide transportation to and from the workshop. In cases where the cost of attending this workshop would cause financial hardship, you may apply for a stipend to help defray these costs.

Our National Science Foundation grant provides funding for the remainder of the operational costs of the workshop. To be supported by these funds, a participant must be either a US citizen, a permanent resident, or in the employ of a US institution. If you don’t meet these requirements and are interested in participating in this workshop at your own expense, please contact Rachel Beane rbeane@bowdoin.edu.

Workshop facilitators:

Rachel Beane, Department of Earth and Oceanographic Science, Bowdoin College

Tessa Hill, Department of Earth & Planetary Science, and Bodega Marine Laboratory, University of California, Davis

Josh Galster, Earth & Environmental Studies, Montclair State University

Andrew Goodliffe, Department of Geological Sciences, University of Alabama

Chris Kim, School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Chapman University

Karen Kortz, Department of Physics, Community College of Rhode Island

Sarah Penniston-Dorland, Department of Geology, University of Maryland

The workshop application and additional information are linked from the workshop website:

http://serc.carleton.edu/NAGTWorkshops/earlycareer2015/index.html

All,

Please consider attending the 2015 Interior of the Earth Gordon Research Conference (June 7-12) and Gordon Research Seminar (June 6-7), both at Mt. Holyoke College, MA USA. This year’s Gordon Research Conference has the theme “Surface Connections. As always, the GRC will include presentations on contemporary topics of interest from those actively engaged in new research and will facilitate extensive discussion after talks. A summary of sessions, session chairs, and speakers is below. A more detailed program is available online.

Further, please encourage post-docs and graduate students (and very junior research scientists/faculty) to consider attending the Interior of the Earth Gordon Research Seminar that immediately precedes the GRC.

The seminar, chaired by Heather Ford (Yale University), is meant for graduate students, post-docs, and very junior faculty or research scientists . It as the theme “The Structure, Properties and Evolution of Plate Boundaries’ and will include chiefly sessions contributed from attendees, with one keynote address from a senior researcher. The GRS will also include a career mentorship component on the subject of communication in the earth sciences. Normally those who attend the GRS also attend the GRC.

The registration deadline is May 9, 2015 for both the Conference and the Seminar. Those wishing to contribute talks to the Gordon Research Seminar need to submit abstracts before March 6, 2015.

To register for the Gordon Research Conference, use the link.

To Register for the Gordon Research Seminar, use the link.

These are also places to find updates to the conference and seminar schedules.

Please also encourage your colleagues, post-docs, and graduate students to attend the GRC and GRS.

We expect to have significant support to defray costs for grad students and post-docs, although the proposal to fund the meeting at NSF is still pending and so we do not at this time know our budget. A flyer for the Conference and Seminar is attached.

Marc Hirschmann – Conference Chair

Ed Garnero – Conference Co-Chair

Heather Ford – GRS Chair

Gordon Research Conference Program (Session Chairs are in Italics):

1. Rifting and the tectonics of passive margins

Cindy Ebinger, Tim Minshull, Jolante van Wijk

2. Volcanoes: Mass, energy, and information from the crust and mantle

Kari Cooper, Joe Dufek, Terry Plank, Diana Roman

3. Subduction: fluids, and melts

Craig Manning Ronit Kessel, Marc Spiegelman

4. Deep Earth Volatile Cycles

Rajdeep Dasgupta Pierre Cartigny Dan Frost, Anne Pommier

5. Upper Mantle Seismic Discontinuities:

melts/volatiles/phase transitions/anisotropy?

Don Forsyth, Nick Schmerr, Yasuko Takei

6. Origin of plate tectonics

Bob Stern, Taras Geryas, Mark Harrison, Joreon van Hunen

7. Structure and Evolution of the Continental Lithosphere

Karen Fischer, Whitney Behr, Rob van der Hilst

8. From Grains to Plates

Laurent Montesi, Julie Castillo-Rogez, Lars Hansen, Andrea Tomassi

9 . New Voices/Unresolved Questions

Louise Kellogg, Selected GRS Presenters, Roberta Rudnick

The 2011 Mineral, Virginia, Earthquake, and Its Significance for Seismic Hazards in Eastern North America (GSA Special Paper 509) is now available.

http://specialpapers.gsapubs.org/content/509

Horton, J.W., Jr., Chapman, M.C., and Green, R.A., eds., 2015, The 2011 Mineral, Virginia, Earthquake, and Its Significance for Seismic Hazards in Eastern North America: Geological Society of America Special Paper 509, 431 p.

The magnitude ~5.8 Mineral, Virginia, earthquake of 2011 was the largest to occur in the Appalachian region in more than 100 years. It was felt over much of the eastern United States and southeastern Canada, caused significant damage from central Virginia to the National Capital Region, and was responsible for the automatic safe shutdown of a nuclear power station. It invigorated interest in earthquake processes, hazards, and preparedness along the Eastern Seaboard, and responses of the science and engineering communities to this rare event serve as models for responding to future events. The earthquake provided important new seismologic, engineering, geologic, hydrologic, and geophysical data that contribute to the understanding of earthquakes in eastern North America and to better assessment and mitigation of seismic hazards. This collection of 23 chapters makes these results available for geoscientists, engineers, and decision makers interested in understanding earthquakes and seismic hazards in eastern North America and other intraplate settings.

Please see below for session of interest to the GeoPRISMS community that will take place at the GSA Cordilleran Section annual meeting, 11-13 May, 2015, in Anchorage, Alaska.

Abstract Submission Deadline is February 10

Web: http://www.geosociety.org/Sections/cord/2015mtg/

Session title:

T10. Tempo of Arc Emplacement and Accretion

Organizers:

Elisabeth Nadin (U.of Alaska – Fairbanks), Chad Hults (National Park Service), and Erin Todd (USGS)

Session description:

Modern intra-oceanic arc systems (IOASs) have diagnostic features depending on their age. Re-assembling these features can be quite difficult in accreted IOASs, which have often undergone prolonged and complex tectonic histories. We welcome submissions that help clarify the nature and timing of arc assembly and accretion in modern and ancient settings.

Confirmed invited presenters:

Sue Kay (Cornell U.)

Jeff Amato (New Mexico State U.)

Craig Hart (U. British Columbia)

Call for participation in the Broadband OBS recovery cruise for the GeoPRISMS Eastern North American Margin Community Seismic Experiment (ENAM CSE)

We seek additional participants for the broadband OBS recovery cruise for the ENAM CSE, which will take place March 26 – April 10 offshore North Carolina. More information about the objectives and design of the ENAM CSE can be found online at http://www.ig.utexas.edu/enam/. Students, postdocs, and early-career scientists are particularly encouraged to apply; no experience with this type of data collection is necessary.

To apply to participate as part of the science party, please send a 2-page CV and a 1-2 page statement of interest and experience (including identification of potential involvement in post-experiment science or potential use of data) to Maureen Long (maureen.long@yale.edu) no later than February 18, 2015. Applications by undergraduate and graduate students require a brief letter of support from the advisor. Please contact Maureen or another PI with any questions.

On behalf of the PI team,

Anne Becel, LDEO (annebcl@ldeo.columbia.edu)

Maggie Benoit, TCNJ (margarethbenoit@gmail.com)

Jim Gaherty, LDEO (gaherty@ldeo.columbia.edu)

Maureen Long, Yale (maureen.long@yale.edu)

Lara Wagner, Carnegie (lwagner@carnegiescience.edu)