Mantle Inputs to the Subduction Factory: Assessing Scales of Spatial Variability along and across the IBM Convergent Margin

University Of Texas At Dallas, Richardson TX

Investigators

Abstract

This award is an Accomplishment-Based Renewal of NSF grant 0001827, which supported surveying and sampling of the southern Mariana arc and back-arc basin during the Cook 7 expedition (R/V Melville) as part of the MARGINS Subduction Factory experiment. This award will allow the following 4 research efforts over the next five years: 1) Completion of four sub-projects begun on samples collected during Cook 7. 2) Participation in a NOAA cruise to study hydrothermal sites in the Marianas with ROV. The PI has been invited to participate and to study igneous rocks collected during the planned cruise. 3) Participation in JAMSTEC study of infant arc crust west of the Bonin Islands. A team of US and Japanese scientists propose to use JAMSTEC's Shinkai 6500 manned submersible to study exposures of infant arc crust exposed along scarps west of the Bonin islands, Japan. The diving program that promises to resolve the ophiolite conundrum as well as help demonstrate how subduction zones begin; and 4) Continued Participation in MARGINS Rapid Response to May 2003 Eruption of Anatahan.