CAREER: Merging geoscience research and education to investigate convergent margin deformation and improve spatio-temporal problem solving in STEM education

职业：将地球科学研究和教育相结合，研究收敛边缘变形并改善 STEM 教育中的时空问题解决

• 批准号: 1847392
• 负责人: Nicholas Perez
• 金额: $ 65.74万
• 依托单位: Texas A&M University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2019
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2019-08-15 至 2024-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1847392&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: CAREER; Merging; geoscience; research; education

Mountain ranges have significant impacts on water and mineral resources, human population centers, climate and weather, and are linked to natural hazards such as landslides, earthquakes, and volcanoes. Despite their societal and environmental impact, the development of mountain ranges remains enigmatic. This project is focused on reconstructing the age, location, and amount of deformation that formed the southern Peruvian Andes. This location is representative of other mountain ranges that form between converging oceanic and continental tectonic plates, allowing this work to advance the global understanding of mountain building. Products of this research are used to create new open-access geoscience course modules for high school, undergraduate, and graduate students. A new Global Tectonics course for undergraduate and graduate students that is based on research from this project includes an international field research experience in the research area in southern Peru. This field experience links tectonics, resources, hazards, and human impacts, facilitating students' perception of issues with global dimensions. These education initiatives contribute toward building a strong STEM workforce that is adept at working with diverse datasets to solve problems across spatial and temporal scales. This project uses field mapping, cross-section construction, geochronology, bedrock and detrital thermochronology, kinematic reconstruction, and virtual outcrop models to constrain the timing, position, and magnitude of crustal shortening accumulated across the southern Peruvian Andes since the Cretaceous Period. These datasets test how inherited rheologic contrasts, temporally variable subduction zone geometry, and interactions between surface and deep earth processes govern the development of mountain ranges along convergent margins. With this new dataset on the temporal and spatial patterns of deformation and mountain building, the principal investigator and students assess how the upper plate responds to changes in subduction zone processes, the discrepancies between measurements of crustal strain at geologic and modern time frames, and how crustal deformation, thickening, and surface uplift are linked in time and space. This work also contributes toward research and education goals identified by the geoscience and tectonics communities.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

山脉对水和矿产资源、人口中心、气候和天气都有重大影响，并与山体滑坡、地震和火山等自然灾害有关。尽管山脉对社会和环境产生了影响，但它的发展仍然是一个谜。该项目的重点是重建形成秘鲁南部安第斯山脉的年龄、位置和变形量。这个位置是其他山脉的代表，这些山脉形成于海洋和大陆构造板块之间，使这项工作能够促进全球对山地建筑的理解。本研究成果被用于为高中、本科生和研究生创建新的开放获取的地球科学课程模块。基于该项目的研究，为本科生和研究生开设了一门新的全球构造学课程，其中包括在秘鲁南部研究区域的国际实地研究经验。这种实地经验将构造，资源，危害和人类影响联系起来，促进学生对全球层面问题的感知。这些教育计划有助于建立一支强大的STEM劳动力队伍，他们善于处理不同的数据集，解决跨空间和时间尺度的问题。该项目利用野外测绘、剖面构造、地质年代学、基岩和碎屑热年代学、运动学重建和虚拟露头模型来限制白垩纪以来秘鲁安第斯山脉南部地壳缩短的时间、位置和幅度。这些数据集测试了继承的流变对比、时间变化的俯冲带几何形状以及地表和深层地球过程之间的相互作用如何支配着沿汇聚边缘的山脉的发展。有了这个关于变形和造山的时空模式的新数据集，首席研究员和学生们评估了上部板块如何响应俯冲带过程的变化，地质和现代时间框架下地壳应变测量之间的差异，以及地壳变形、增厚和地表隆起在时间和空间上的联系。这项工作也有助于地球科学和构造界确定的研究和教育目标。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。