Structural Geology and Tectonics Forum at Sonoma State University, Rohnert Park, CA, August 1st - 3rd, 2016

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This award will support the fourth biannual Structural Geology and Tectonics Forum, which will be held in August 2016 at Sonoma State University. The forum will bring together specialists in structural geology and tectonics for oral and poster presentations, field trips, and short courses. The meeting will include three days of presentations that will include technical sessions that will include topics such as quantification of fault slip, lithospheric deformation and rheology, faulting and fluid flow, development of tectonic microstructures, and geoscience education. Each session will highlight an important area of current research and/or education, will be anchored by a distinguished keynote speaker, and will showcase relevance of work on the topic. Poster sessions with abundant time for full participant interaction will accompany each session. The forum will be organized to maximize the exchange of ideas between participants in open discussions. Sessions will provide ample opportunity to ask questions of individual presenters, assess the current state of our knowledge, and consider productive areas for future research. In addition to the formal meeting, there will be pre- and post-meeting field trips to examine the geology of selected areas in the San Francisco and Sonoma areas of northern California, including the San Andreas Fault and related fault systems, as well as other areas of geologic interest in northern California. Short course topics will include preparing graduate students for academic careers in the earth sciences, preparation of samples for analysis by electron backscatter detection (EBSD) methods, teaching structural geology and tectonics, quantitative and statistical treatment of structural geology data, new methods of constructing balanced geological cross sections, and analysis of geologic and tectonics structures using finite element modeling. The forum is designed to facilitate community building and personal interaction within different segments of the structural geology community. It will bring together faculty from research universities, liberal arts colleges, community and two-year colleges, and minority-serving institutions. Importantly, there will be group discussions on critical developments in structural geology and tectonics, and what future research priorities should be. This community building effort will help create a stronger, more vibrant group of scientists and help introduce graduate students and advanced undergraduates to the structural geology and tectonics disciplines. The setting will be particularly useful for graduate students, who will be able to use the venue and informal nature of the forum to find out what research is taking place at other institutions, meet a wide range of faculty, and develop useful contacts which will be of great value to their future careers. Students will also be able to present their own work in a friendly environment where they can obtain thoughtful and useful feedback, as well as providing opportunity to build new scientific collaborations. Abstracts, field guides, and short course notes will be disseminated through a dedicated website that will be publicly accessible.