Workshop on the Assembly of Gondwana

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The concept of a supercontinent, named "Gondwana, "has stirred the imaginations and stimulated the research of geoscientists since the first suggestion of the possibility of continental drift. The Mesozoic-Cenozoic fragmentation of Gondwana is now reasonably well understood, but the original of the supercontinent is still largely a matter of speculation. Because Gondwana constituted approximately one half of the world's continental crust, the history of assembly of Gondwana is a large part of the history of assembly of "Pangea" near the end of the Paleozoic. Furthermore, the age and sequence of accretion of fragments to Gondwana place important constraints on efforts to decipher the configuration and history of fragmentation of a middle-to-late-Proterozoic supercontinent ("Rodinia"). The principal investigators wish to study the assembly of Gondwana by organizing coordinated research projects that investigate geographic areas and use techniques that are regarded as particularly useful. As a start, they will hold a workshop to identify problems that are both important and require a coordinated approach. They have assembled an international group of scientists with expertise in various geographic areas and geoscience disciplines and will bring them together in the spring of 1993. The primary purpose of this workshop will be to prepare a proposal for further coordinated research projects.