U.S.-Japan Cooperative Science: Structure, Seismicity and Tectonics of the Japanese Island Arc from New Deep Seismic Exploration

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9726766 Brown This award supports a three year collaborative research project between Professor Larry Brown of Cornell University and Professor Naoshi Hirata of the University of Tokyo in Japan. The researchers will be undertaking a study of the structure, seismicity and tectonics of the Japanese island arc from new deep seismic exploration. Japanese scientists are developing a program for the systematic exploration of the Japanese islands by deep seismic surveys on land to be combined with comparable efforts by marine groups offshore. They are developing a new deep seismic reflection/refraction transect. The transect will attempt to delineate the deep geometry of major active, intra-arc faults at depth in an area where the current tectonic boundary conditions are relatively simple. These geometries are a critical missing element in understanding strain partitioning within the crust and the dependent dynamic models of earthquake tectonics. The researchers will focus on optimal design and execution of deep seismic surveys, coupled with an integrated, global approach to interpreting the results of those surveys. This project brings together the efforts of two laboratories that have complementary expertise and research capabilities. The Cornell group will provide expertise in the application of reflection seismic methods to a wide variety of lithospheric imaging problems while the Japanese researchers will provide expertise in fault tectonics and earthquake mechanisms. The geologic targets of deep seismic profiling in Japan are of scientific interest in their own area. However, these results are also likely to have much broader implications for researchers in other areas, both in terms of technique development and geological models of continental evolution and active tectonics. Younger scientists will also be participating in this project. Through the exchange of ideas and technology, this project will broaden our base of basic knowledge and promo te international understanding and cooperation. ***