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

山脉对水和矿产资源、人口中心、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有影响，但山脉的发展仍然是个谜。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。这个位置代表了在海洋和大陆构造板块交汇之间形成的其他山脉，使这项工作能够促进全球对山脉建设的理解。这项研究的产品被用来创建新的开放获取的地球科学课程模块，高中，本科和研究生。一个新的全球构造学课程的本科生和研究生，是从这个项目的研究基础上，包括在秘鲁南部的研究领域的国际实地研究经验。这一领域的经验链接构造，资源，危害和人类的影响，促进学生的问题与全球层面的看法。这些教育计划有助于建立一支强大的STEM劳动力队伍，他们擅长使用不同的数据集来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自白垩纪以来秘鲁南部安第斯山脉累积的地壳缩短的时间、位置和幅度。这些数据集测试如何继承流变对比，随时间变化的俯冲带几何形状，以及地表和深部地球过程之间的相互作用，管理山脉沿着收敛边缘的发展。通过这个关于变形和造山运动的时空模式的新数据集，主要研究人员和学生评估了上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，增厚和表面隆起如何在时间和空间上联系起来。该奖项反映了NSF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。

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.