MARGINS Successor Planning Workshop

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Funds are provided for a marine geosciences community-wide workshop to consider and discuss the future of the MARGINS Program. In the aftermath of a positive Decadal Review of the program in February 2009, the MARGINS Steering Committee (MSC) was asked to convene a community-wide workshop, intended to identify and elucidate key scientific challenges that a potential successor program would address, and to map out its structure. A draft Science Plan would emerge based upon that meeting?s result, which would then be used by NSF as a basis for deciding whether a successor program will be authorized. The workshop is planned for February 2010 in San Antonio, TX. It is envisioned by the MSC that a successor to MARGINS that will investigate the coupled geodynamic, surficial, and climatic processes that build and modify continental margins over a wide range of timescales. Such a program will have applications to margin evolution and dynamics, construction of stratigraphic architecture, and implications for accumulation of economic resources, associated geologic hazards, climate change and environmental management. Addressing such complex coupled systems requires an integrated approach, and we envision a broad range of studies combining field research in structure and tectonics, geochemistry, geophysics, sedimentology and stratigraphy, but also incorporating experimental, analytical and numerical modeling investigations. The program will involve large amphibious field programs and smaller focused field and lab-based studies. In order for the program to succeed, a clear and focused Science Plan should be formed, with broad community support. The workshop hopes to lay the groundwork for such a plan.Broader Impacts. Active continental margins are the sources of some of the most dramatic geologic phenomena, including earthquakes, landslides, and volcanic eruptions. The growing populations on continental margins are also subject to longer-term environmental impacts, such as land-use changes induced by coastal submergence, erosion, or storm effects. Continental margins are also the repository of abundant economic resources, and an integrated understanding of the origin and distribution of these deposits is necessary for accessing them in the future. An important outcome of the workshop will be a structure for scientific investigations that can address such topical issues, and convey coherent information about continental margin processes and hazards to the general public. It will also provide structure for a coherent Education Program to complement a successor program, based on the undergraduate-based program in place currently.