Workshop: Synthesizing EarthScope Results to Develop a New Model for the 4-D Evolution of North America
Conveners: Steve Whitmeyer, John Hole, Terry Pavlis, Lara Wagner, Laura Webb, Mike Williams
Location: James Madison University, Harrisonburg, Virginia
Date: November 18-20, 2016
Applications accepted until September 16th, 2016. Apply here.
This 3-day workshop will synthesize EarthScope results relevant to the tectonic evolution of North America in space and time. The principal workshop goals are to: 1. Synthesize EarthScope results from the primarily 3-D geophysical experiments that captured a snapshot of present day North America, especially those that have relevance to the temporal evolution of the continent; 2. Integrate EarthScope results with existing continent-scale geologic, geochronologic, and tectonic knowledge; and 3. Produce a summary document that highlights successes from EarthScope research that have advanced our knowledge of the 4-D tectonic evolution of North America. We also intend for this workshop to lead to a GSA Special Paper or Geosphere themed issue with papers co-authored by workshop participants, EarthScope scientists, and other researchers on topics relevant to the geological evolution of the continent.
In addition, we plan to discuss ways to expand on these syntheses to initiate a new community model for the lithospheric evolution of North America. The goal is to address long-standing questions of how time-integrated processes of plate tectonics and surface processes evolved over ~4 billion years to produce the earth structures we see today. This vision remains an idea that requires both community input and discussions of what is practical with technology available today.