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

山脉对水资源和矿产资源、人口聚集地、气候和天气有重大影响，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，但它们的发展仍然是个谜。这个项目的重点是重建形成秘鲁安第斯山脉南部的年龄、位置和形变量。这一位置代表了在汇聚的海洋和大陆构造板块之间形成的其他山脉，使这项工作能够促进全球对山脉建筑的理解。这项研究的产品被用来为高中、本科生和研究生创建新的开放访问的地球科学课程模块。根据该项目的研究成果，为本科生和研究生开设了一门新的全球构造学课程，其中包括秘鲁南部研究领域的国际实地研究经验。这种实地体验将构造、资源、灾害和人类影响联系在一起，促进了学生对具有全球维度的问题的感知。这些教育举措有助于建立一支强大的STEM员工队伍，擅长使用不同的数据集来解决空间和时间尺度上的问题。该项目使用野外测绘、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自白垩纪以来在秘鲁安第斯山脉南部累积的地壳缩短的时间、位置和规模。这些数据集测试了遗传的流变学对比、时间可变的俯冲带几何形状以及地表和地球深处过程之间的相互作用如何支配沿会聚边缘的山脉的发展。有了这个关于形变和造山的时空模式的新数据集，首席研究员和学生评估了上板块如何对俯冲带过程的变化做出反应，在地质和现代时间框架下测量的地壳应变之间的差异，以及地壳变形、增厚和地表隆起在时间和空间上是如何联系在一起的。这项工作也为地球科学界和构造界确定的研究和教育目标做出了贡献。这一奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

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.