Synthesizing emerging results and identifying future research in an early-stage, magma-poor rift: A workshop in the southern East Africa Rift System

综合新兴成果并确定早期贫岩裂谷的未来研究：东非南部裂谷系统研讨会

• 批准号: 2025254
• 负责人: Donna Shillington
• 金额: $ 13.99万
• 依托单位: Northern Arizona University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2020
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2020-10-01 至 2023-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2025254&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Synthesizing; emerging; results; identifying; future

The East Africa Rift System (EARS) is one of the best examples in the world of a continent that is actively in the process of stretching and breaking apart; in the past, these geological processes have culminated in the breakup of continents and formation of ocean basins like the Atlantic Ocean. Although continental stretching and breakup has occurred repeatedly over Earth’s history, the early stages in this process remain poorly understood. In addition to being an important scientific topic, continental stretching is also essential to understand for assessing geohazards; rift zones like the East Africa Rift System are seismically and volcanically active. Over the past 10 years, a number of new scientific studies focused on the southern part of the East Africa Rift System have emerged that are providing new and surprising insights into the onset of continental breakup. This award will support a 4-day workshop in the summer of 2021 in Malawi, which is located within the rift valley, to bring together ~50 US and African scientists to share and synthesize the results of these recent studies to achieve a more comprehensive understanding of continental stretching and associated hazards in the southern part of the East Africa Rift system. This workshop will also provide opportunities to strengthen existing relationships and form new collaborations between US and African scientists, training for early career scientists, and public outreach on the rift and its hazards. The EARS exhibits along-strike changes in magmatism, deformation and cumulative stretching, offering the opportunity to examine active rifting processes at different stages of development and study controls on rifting. These attributes made the EARS an excellent locality to address major questions about rifting posed in the NSF GeoPRISMS science plan. The southern section of the EARS constitutes an endmember of this system in two important respects: 1) there is limited volcanism at the surface, providing the opportunity to more fully test models that require magmatism to weaken and thin the lithosphere, and 2) relatively little cumulative stretching has occurred, making it possible to observe controls on rift initiation. In the last ~5 years, a number of US and international studies have yielded interesting and surprising results on the southern EAR. However, because many EARS-related efforts were funded late in the GeoPRISMS program due to the phased funding model and/or leveraged efforts funded by other programs, there has not been an opportunity for the interdisciplinary community to meet and discuss these results in the context of the GeoPRISMS efforts. The 4-day workshop supported by this award will enable US and African scientists to meet in person and share results; in-person meetings are essential to foster communication and develop and maintain strong international collaborations. The workshop will take place in the summer of 2021 in Malawi, which is located within the rift valley, central to the focus area of the workshop. Holding the meeting here will enable participation by more African scientists, facilitate more networking between US and Africa scientists, and allow for education and outreach efforts associated with the workshop. We will carefully select attendees by application in order to ensure that participants represent a cross-section of expertise, career stage and experience working in AfricaThis 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.

东非裂谷系统（EARS）是世界上大陆最好的例子之一，在过去，大陆一直在积极地伸展和分裂，这些地质过程最终导致了大陆的分裂和海洋的形成；尽管大陆伸展和分裂在地球历史上反复发生，但人们对这一过程的早期阶段仍然知之甚少，除了作为一个重要的科学课题外，大陆伸展对于评估地质灾害也至关重要。东非裂谷系统等裂谷区域的地震和火山活动十分活跃。在过去的十年中，出现了许多针对东非裂谷系统南部的新科学研究，这些研究为东非裂谷系统的爆发提供了新的、令人惊讶的见解。该奖项将支持 2021 年夏天在位于裂谷内的马拉维举行为期 4 天的研讨会，汇聚约 50 名美国和非洲科学家，分享和综合这些近期研究成果。旨在更全面地了解东非裂谷系统南部的大陆伸展和相关危险的研究。该研讨会还将提供加强美国和非洲科学家之间现有关系和形成新合作的机会，并为早期职业科学家提供培训。 EARS 显示了岩浆作用、变形和累积拉伸的沿走向变化，为检查不同发展阶段的活跃裂谷过程和研究裂谷控制提供了机会。 EARS 是解决 NSF GeoPRISMS 科学计划中提出的有关裂谷的主要问题的绝佳地点 EARS 的南部在两个重要方面构成了该系统的终端成员：1）地表火山活动有限，为更多的活动提供了机会。充分测试了需要岩浆作用来削弱和减薄岩石圈的模型，2）发生了相对较小的累积拉伸，使得观察裂谷萌生的控制成为可能。美国和国际研究在 EAR 南部取得了有趣且令人惊讶的结果。然而，由于分阶段资助模式和/或其他项目资助的杠杆努力，许多 EARS 相关工作在 GeoPRISMS 项目后期才得到资助，因此尚未得到资助。为跨学科界提供了在 GeoPRISMS 努力的背景下会面和讨论这些结果的机会 由该奖项支持的为期 4 天的研讨会将使美国和非洲科学家能够面对面交流并分享结果；促进沟通和研讨会将于 2021 年夏季在马拉维举行，马拉维位于大裂谷内，是研讨会重点区域的中心，在这里举行会议将使更多的非洲科学家参与其中。 ，促进美国和非洲科学家之间建立更多的联系，并考虑与研讨会相关的教育和推广工作。我们将根据申请仔细选择与会者，以确保与会者代表不同领域的专业知识、职业阶段和在非洲工作的经验。该奖项反映了 NSF 的法定使命，并且通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，该项目被认为值得支持。