Workshop: New Departures in Structural Geology and Tectonics, September 2002, Denver

认识到结构地质学和构造学研究的新机遇，通过最近的技术发展，新的定量数据集以及概念和理论的进步，促使研讨会考虑这一领域科学的未来方向。这些新的机会也带来了关注长期存在的问题，在这一领域的研究相对优点的描述性与定量方法，案例研究的特定区域与实验研究的特定机制，运动与机械建模，历史与过程为导向的目标。要求提供资金，以组织和举办讲习班，并编写和分发一份白色文件，概述结构地质学和构造学研究的新进展。讲习班的参加者将编写白色文件，他们代表了这一领域最广泛学科意义上的学者群体。他们将征求同行和同事的意见和建议，以寻求关于该领域未来科学方向的平衡和代表性声明。预计这篇白色论文将有助于确定未来十年构造地质学和构造学的研究方向，它将提供标准，帮助评估这一领域拟议研究的知识价值，它将有助于确定调查领域和方法，这些领域和方法已经成熟，可以取得最快的进展和科学突破，它将为教师在课堂上选择主题和讨论方法提供指导。该白色文件将以硬拷贝形式分发给国家科学基金会科学研究部的专业人员，以及美国地质勘探局和能源部负责研究赠款的适当专业人员。这份白色文件将通过一个网站提供给全球地质管理局结构地质学和构造学司的成员以及澳大利亚地质调查组有关部门的成员。

Recognition of new opportunities for research in structural geology and tectonics, brought into focus by recent technological developments, new quantitative data sets, and both conceptual and theoretical advances, motivate a workshop to consider the future directions of science in this field. These new opportunities also bring into focus long standing questions in this area of research about the relative merits of descriptive versus quantitative methods, case studies of particular regions versus experimental studies of particular mechanisms, kinematic versus mechanical modeling, and historical versus process-oriented objectives. Funding is requested to organize and carry out the workshop, and to prepare and distribute a white paper summarizing new departures for research in structural geology and tectonics. Participants in the workshop, who will prepare the white paper, represent the community of scholars in this field in the broadest disciplinary sense. They will solicit input and comments from peers and colleagues to seek balanced and representative statements about future scientific directions in this field. It is anticipated that the white paper will help to set the course of research in structural geology and tectonics in the next decade, that it will provide criteria to help evaluate the intellectual merits of proposed research in this area, that it will help identify areas of investigation and methodologies ripe for the most rapid advances and scientific breakthroughs, and that it will provide guidance to instructors for the selection of topics and the discussion of methodologies in the classroom. The white paper will be distributed in hard copy form to the NSF EAR Division professional personnel, and to appropriate professional personnel in charge of research grants at the USGS and the DoE. The white paper will be made available to members of the Structural Geology and Tectonics Division of the GSA, and to members of appropriate divisions of the AGU through a website.