U.S.-Eastern Europe Earth Sciences Workshop on Mantle Dynamic Responses to Africa-Eurasia Collision in Covasna, Romania

University Of Illinois At Chicago, Chicago IL

Investigators

Abstract

INT 0002203 Flower This U.S.-Eastern Europe workshop on "Mantle Dynamic Response to Africa-Eurasia Collision" features an active tectonic system encompassing the region of Pannonia, Carpathia, and Dinaride (PANCARDI). Many U.S. and European experts view this system, generated in response to the Mid-to Late-Tertiary Africa-European plate collision, and the PANCARDI region as a natural, transnational laboratory for examining the cause of widespread intro-continental magmatism. The U.S. workshop organizer, Martin F. J. Flower of the University of Illinois at Chicago, and his Romanian counterpart, Victor I. Mocanu of the University of Bucharest, intend to bring together an interdisciplinary group from the United States and Central and Eastern Europe to examine recent research findings that point to collision-induced mantle flow as a driver of lithosphere escape, volcanic arc rollback and basin opening. The workshop will take place north of Bucharest in Covasna, Romania, during June 17-21, 2000. After site visits and workshop discussions, participating junior and senior geologists, geophysicists and modelers from the U.S., Romania, Poland, Hungary, the Czech and Slovak Republics, Germany and Ukraine will formulate new cross-disciplinary research synergies and refine plans for follow-on cooperative research projects that incorporate seismic shear-wave splitting, geochemical-isotope studies and numerical modeling. Results should clarify next steps for understanding geodynamic evolution and collision-related asthenospheric responses as causes of basaltic volcanism. This workshop on mantel dynamics associated with continental plate collisions fulfills the program objective of advancing scientific knowledge by enabling experts in the United States and Eastern Europe to combine complementary talents and share research resources in areas of mutual interest and competence.