“Subduction and the long-term fate of H2O on Earth”
with Dr. Geoffrey Abers
Originally presented 17 Jan 2010
We welcome Dr. Geoff Abers for his first E2C workshop. Dr. Abers arrived at LDEO in 2008 as a Doherty Senior Research Scientist and Adjunct Professor, continuing a distinguished career in which he has investigated questions ranging fromsubducting slabs, structure, metamorphism, and earthquakes to broadband seismic field experiments. He is Director of MARGINS (http://www.nsf-margins.org/), one of the grandest investigations of continental margins,Earth’s principal loci for producing hydrocarbon and metal resources, for earthquake, landslide, volcanic and climatic hazards, and for the greatest population density.
Today’s talk will take two topics–Plate Tectonics and the Water Cycle–and discuss them in ways that go beyond the basic concepts familiar to most educators. A great deal of research effort currently focuses on better understanding how the solid Earth is connected to its surface.
Key questions explored in this workshop include:
1) In what ways can we describe components of a global long-term H2O cycle?
2) Why is subduction critical as part of the water cycle?
3) How can we image deep evidence for fluid cycles?
Cutting-Edge Research
Dr. Geoff Abers joined LDEO in 2008 as a Doherty Senior Research Scientist and Adjunct Professor, continuing a distinguished career in which he has investigated questions ranging from subducting slabs, structure, metamorphism, and earthquakes to broadband seismic field experiments. He is Director of MARGINS (http://www.nsf-margins.org/), one of the grandest investigations of continental margins, Earth’s principal loci for producing hydrocarbon and metal resources, for earthquake, landslide, volcanic and climatic hazards, and for the greatest population density.
Despite the societal and economic importance of margins, many of the mechanical, fluid, chemical and biological processes that shape them are poorly understood. Progress is hindered by the sheer scope of the problems and by the space and time scales as well as the complexities of the processes. To overcome these obstacles, the earth science community has identified the outstanding scientific problems in continental margins research and the MARGINS Program is promoting research strategies that redirect traditional approaches to margin studies. In particular, the MARGINS Program will focus on the coordinated, interdisciplinary investigation of four fundamental initiatives; the Seismogenic Zone Experiment, the Subduction Factory, Rupturing Continental Lithosphere, and Sediment Dynamics and Strata Formation (Source to Sink).
Link to Dr. Abers’ pdf presentation for this workshop:
Subduction and the Long-Term Fate of H2O on Earth
Learn more at Dr. Abers’ home page:
http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/~abers/
Multimedia
To view images from this Workshops:
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