Subduction Town Meeting, 7th July 2006
A community-wide effort is on-going to establish a new NERC-funded directed programme to undertake integrated, multi-scale and multidisciplinary investigation of subduction zone dynamics and processes.
A Town Meeting will take place on Friday 7 July at the Department of Earth Sciences, University of Durham, to discuss the opportunities, scope and potential content for a proposal for a new Research Council funded Directed Programme to investigate, in a multi-disciplined and integrated manner, the origin and evolution of subduction zones.
Subduction zones are unique environments where there is a dynamic interaction of processes and fluxes between the Earth, ocean and atmospheric systems as well as within them. Their associated processes also result in extreme natural hazards which have great societal impact on global and local scales. This meeting will establish the range and strength of UK science in these areas and formulate a cohesive strategy for a science programme spanning up to 10 years.
Subduction zone processes determine the fate of oceanic lithosphere and the evolution of continental crust and play a key role in concentrating many economic resources in the crust, yet they have an unknown impact on biogeochemical processes via deep energy supply. Understanding these systems and the mitigation of associated risk requires an integrated approach to tectonic, geochemical, biological, ecological, and hydrological processes and exchanges.
This Town Meeting will bring together academics and other interested parties from a wide variety of communities to discuss and address inter-related topics and demonstrate the depth and importance of such focused study within a Directed Programme framework. The format of the meeting will include keynote speakers from similar international programmes; national experts summarising key issues within their fields; outline and discussion of key scientific problems; short presentations from participants to facilitate and focus discussion within forum; plus integration and theme development for the full proposal.
The meeting will include light refreshments and lunch. There will be no charge for this meeting, but in order to judge numbers for catering, we request that participants register their attendance by emailing gl-subduction-town@durham.ac.uk.