State of the Arc Conference (SOTA) 2010: Subduction to Eruption

University Of California-Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz CA

Investigators

Abstract

Intellectual Merit: The fifth State of the Arc (SOTA) conference will be convened September 19-25, 2010 at Syros and Santorini, Greece. Its theme will be ?Subduction to Eruption?, and sub-themes will include: (1) prograde metamorphic reaction within subducted materials; (2) geophysical and geodynamic constraints on arc magmatism; (3) observational and experimental constraints on heat and mass balance in arc magmas at mantle and crust levels; (4) time-scales of degassing and differentiation of magmas; and (5) volcanic hazards. This conference will bring together ~75 international researchers and students whose work bears on these themes. This proposal seeks funding from NSF for the registration fee for about ten graduate students or postdocs and about ten invited speakers. Experience has shown that a ?Gordon Conference?-style format allows SOTA meetings to address critical questions and facilitate new research directions amongst participants. Approximately 11 keynote speakers and provocateurs will be invited whose tasks will be to summarize past and cutting edge research bearing on the aforementioned sub-themes. Other participants will present relevant research results, primarily in poster format. The majority of the time of the conference will revolve around extended and focused discussion of the relation between geodynamic processes, magma differentiation, and volcano hazards. The provocateurs will be invited to stimulate these discussions. Field trips on Syros and Santorini will view important aspects of subducted materials and arc volcanism. The organizing committee will convene the meeting and will be responsible for inviting keynote speakers and attracting other participants, guiding the scientific content of the meeting, and preparing a written summary for publication. Broader Impacts: About half the funds from the NSF will be used to pay the registration fee for young researchers. This will ensure that the next generation of researchers will participate in and see the benefit of international scientific cooperation at an early stage in their careers. It also will provide the opportunity of these young researchers to interact with internationally recognized experts. The small size of the meeting and the involvement of researchers with diverse backgrounds (geologists, petrologists, geochemists, and geophysicists) will foment dialogue between different groups, which is critical to identifying important issues to address and viable, international partnerships to address them. Hazards will play a more central role in this SOTA meeting than earlier ones, and it is expected that progress will be made in developing tools to predict hazards trajectories for volcanoes utilizing petrological, geochemical, and geophysical information.