GSA Penrose Conference on 'Deformation, Fluid Flow and Mass Transfer along Convergent Margins'

This project provides funding for international travel support to approximately early-career professionals and students to attend the Penrose Conference 'Deformation, Fluid Flow and Mass Transfer along Convergent Margins' that will be held in Il Ciocco, Italy, from March, 26-30, 2012. The conference will explore recent developments related to deformation, fluid flow, and mass transfer in the forearc of convergent plate boundaries and their potential relationships to earthquake phenomena and seismogenesis. The objective of the conference is to consolidate recent advances in the understanding of convergent margins and to bring together researchers of different backgrounds to develop models for forearc evolution that explains observations of geometry, structure, deformation, and fluid flow at a variety of temporal and spatial scales. Forearcs are also the regions where energy release occurs in great tsunamigenic earthquakes, yet the links between earthquake-cycle deformation and longer-term geological structure, material properties, and the fluid regime remain obscure. The main topics at the meeting will include: (1) material balances - the processes and rates of accretion and erosion and their influence on seismogenesis; (2) interactions between the subducting and overriding plates including continental slope and forearc basins; (3) wedge dynamics and links between seismic and geologic time scales; (4) fluid flow in the forearc: evidence from direct observations and inferences from rock microstructures and geochemistry; and (5) the timescales of the earthquake cycle.

This conference addresses many current research topics in tectonics and related fields. The conference affords international participants the opportunity to share recent research results and initiate new international research partnerships. The meeting provides an opportunity for integration of onshore and marine observations, experiments on mechanics and fluid flow, and results of geodynamic modeling to evaluate the relationship between these processes for plate boundary seismogenesis and hazards of the Pacific Rim - a topic of great concern for society as exemplified by the destructive event in northern Japan in March, 2011. Conveners will make efforts to broaden participation through support students and early career researchers from underrepresented groups in the earth sciences.