Collaborative Research: TAIGER's Tale: Tectonics of Subduction to Collision

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The TAIGER (Taiwan Integrated Geodynamics Research) project is a joint USA-Taiwan program that seeks to model the complex collision processes and the tectonic development of Taiwan, based on extensive observation. Funded by the NSF Continental Dynamics Program and by Taiwan's National Science Council and involving investigators at SUNY/Binghamton, UTIG, USC, Cornell, and Wisconsin, this project has acquired more than twice as much data as originally proposed due to synergistic contributions by Taiwan scientists and Taiwanese government science funding. From FY2006-2009, deployments of seismic instruments on land (IRIS) and at ocean-bottom (OBSIP) maximized the recording of local events and teleseisms, as well as artificial sources specially set off for TAIGER, in order to obtain high resolution 3-D images. To map the areas around Taiwan the PIs were able to use the NSF-supported research ship, the R/V Langseth, to create seismic waves that were recorded by a 6-km long streamer and also ocean-bottom and land recorders. These seismic and magnetotelluric profiles as well as petrologic lab data are currently being analyzed. TAIGER project data combined with geodynamics methods will be used to test a set of existing tectonic models that range from a thin skinned model, in which subduction of continental Eurasian mantle and lower crust is separated from a deforming crustal wedge by a plate boundary decollement, from a thick skinned model, where deformation of crust and mantle occurs within a vertically contiguous system, with progressive thickening of continental mantle beneath the core of the mountain belt.The current project (TAIGER?s TALE), will expand on thier initial studies to carry out in-depth and advanced studies using the extensive TAIGER data volumes (no new data will be acquired). This work will lead to significant advances in understanding deformational processes associated with the evolution of Taiwan due to plate collision. Studies will focus primarily on seismological analyses to obtain physical properties and rheological indicators as well as the integrative ties with geodynamical modeling efforts. The over-arching strategy is to take advantage of the unique aspects of the acquired data sets, the tectonic environment, and the diverse and complementary participating/collaborating personnel. They will perform their analyses of various data sets in such a way that higher frequency/higher resolution results are nested in the context of broader scale results. They will make extensive use of ?crossover? seismological data sets recorded during TAIGER (active sources collected by passive-source arrays, and earthquakes collected in active-source arrays). Also, analysis/interpretation of these data will be closely tied to geodynamic modeling.