Linkage of climate and geodynamics in development of plateaux at collisional plate margins: marine contributions to an international study of the Central Anatolian Plateau.

重要的是，人类要更好地了解地球系统，这样决策者才能制定合适的、长期的社会和经济战略，以应对各种环境问题，包括全球变化。这是一个跨学科的项目，研究气候和固体地球动力学之间的联系，在山地带高原的演变。这是由板块碰撞的构造所驱动的，但当地气候通过侵蚀、运输和沉积改变了上升的地表。反过来，不断演变的山带可能会影响全球气候。造山高原是山带内的高平原，它导致当地气候变化（例如雨影），并受其影响。年轻的造山高原保存了它们演化的岩石记录，提供了一个特殊的机会来增强我们对地表和深层过程之间基本联系的理解，并对它们进行建模。土耳其南部的中部安纳托利亚高原位于一个活跃的辐合板块边缘之上，非洲板块和安纳托利亚板块在此交汇。大陆碰撞才刚刚开始，我们假设碰撞是高原隆起的原因。这个新项目包括对高原隆起的陆地研究，辅以对邻近近海盆地相应沉降的研究，以及确定活动板块边缘地壳结构的地震调查，以及综合所有信息的地球动力学建模。加拿大小组将在这项研究的海洋部分发挥关键作用：2008年5月对地中海东部的Göksu三角洲进行高分辨率地震反射调查，这是一个主要的当地沉积物汇；以及从非洲板块到安纳托利亚中部高原的广角地壳地震调查，计划于2009年8月进行。我们为调查（已由我们的合作伙伴安排）和后续数据处理、建模和解释寻求资金。我们要求NSERC提供的资金将是我们欧洲合作伙伴的6倍多。

It is important that humankind better understand the Earth system, so that policy makers can develop suitable, long-term social and economic strategies to deal with various environmental issues, including global change. This is an interdisciplinary project to study the linkages between climate and solid Earth dynamics, in the evolution of plateaux in mountain belts. These are driven by the tectonics of colliding plates, but local climate modifies the rising surface through erosion, transport and deposition.  In turn, the evolving mountain belt may affect global climate.  Orogenic plateaux are high plains within mountain belts, which result in, and are modified by, local climatic variations (rain-shadows, for instance). Young orogenic plateaux, which preserve a rock record of their evolution, offer a special opportunity to enhance our understanding of the essential linkage between surface and deeper processes, and model them.  The Central Anatolian Plateau, in southern Turkey, lies above an active convergent plate margin, where the African and Anatolian plates meet.  Continental collision is just starting, and we hypothesize that the collision is responsible for the uplift of the Plateau.  This new project involves onland studies of the Plateau uplift, complemented by studies of corresponding subsidence in adjacent offshore basins, together with seismic surveys to determine crustal structure of the active plate margin, and geodynamic modeling integrating all the information.The Canadian team will play a pivotal role in the marine component of this research: a high-resolution seismic reflection survey of the Göksu delta, a major local sediment sink, in the eastern Mediterranean, in May 2008; and a wide-angle crustal seismic survey from the African plate to the Central Anatolian Plateau on the Anatolian plate, planned for August 2009.  We seek funding for the surveys (already scheduled by our partners) and the follow-up data processing, modelling and interpretation. Our requested contribution from NSERC will leverage over 6 times as much funding from our European partners.