Conference Support for the 25th International Himalaya-Karakoram-Tibet (HKT) Workshop

San Francisco State University, San Francisco CA

Investigators

Abstract

This award provides support for the 25th International Himalaya-Karakorum-Tibet (HKT) Workshop. The HKT workshop provides an annual opportunity for geologists, geophysicists, geochemists, geomorphologists, and other workers to present and assess recent findings from work in the region and to plan the following year?s activity. This conference traditionally meets alternate years in an HKT country (Nepal/China/India etc.) and alternate years in a western country to allow for broader participation. The 11th HKT meeting was the only one to have been held in the US (1996 in Flagstaff, AZ). The international community has now asked the US to host the 25th HKT Workshop in 2010, and a group of scientists from San Francisco State University, Stanford, and UC Santa Cruz has accepted the task of organizing this meeting. Since the previous North American HKT meeting in 1996, US workers have continued to make huge advances in Himalayan and Tibetan geosciences: EAR/CD has continued to fund much research in Tibet and the Himalaya, including such flagship programs as the continuing INDEPTH integrated geoscience program, the Hi-CLIMB seismic transect across central Tibet, and the Nanga Parbat and Namche Barwa projects studying geomorphic-geodynamic-climate couplings at both the southern and northern margins of the Plateau; as well as much more ?traditional? geology. The strong support given by NSF to Himalaya-Tibet studies has yielded a spectacular increase in our understanding, but also raised the questions, do we know enough? Are there important gaps in our knowledge and understanding of Tibet? Where and how will the next key advances be made? Why should NSF continue to support large-scale studies in Tibet and the Himalaya? The Workshop will enable NSF funded scientists to come together to discuss these questions; to assess progress and to plan to direct activities in the coming years to where more data is needed to fill in the gaps. An outcome of the meeting will be a brief white paper to inform NSF how university scientists hope to capitalize on the previous NSF-funded field campaigns in Tibet and the Himalaya, and to justify future directions for investment in this area.