Marine Seismology Symposium 2020

Earthscope Consortium Inc., Washington DC

Investigators

Abstract

Oceans and other water bodies cover over 70% of Earth's surface, shrouding critical geologic regimes, natural resource deposits, and ecosystems. Obtaining a deeper understanding of the processes occurring on Earth requires unique strategies and innovative technologies, as well as strong collaborations across the shoreline, between scientific disciplines, and through international and industry partnerships. To address this priority, a two-day, science-focused symposium will be convened uniting the seismological and marine geoscience community. The symposium will enable scientists and program managers to share exciting new science results, discuss future directions and key scientific questions, promote and empower early career scientists by showcasing their work and providing networking opportunities, and communicate changes to critical marine seismic infrastructure so that research can be successfully planned, funded, and conducted using existing and evolving tools. This symposium is critical for maintaining the health of the marine seismic research community and will facilitate progress toward better understanding of frontier science topics such as the processes related to geohazards like megathrust earthquakes, tsunamis, undersea landslides, and volcanic eruptions as well as the processes that control the formation and evolution of ocean basins. The University National Oceanographic Laboratory System-Marine Seismic Research Oversight Committee (UNOLS-MSROC) and the Ocean Bottom Seismograph Instrument Pool Oversight Committee identified a priority to organize a symposium for the seismological and marine geoscience community. This symposium will accomplish the following goals: 1) Showcase research in marine seismology using new technology to achieve innovative observational datasets with an emphasis on open-access and interdisciplinary or international projects. 2) Reach out to seismology subject-matter experts in international, industry, terrestrial, defense, and extra-terrestrial environments to enhance cross-community interactions, leveraging of resources, and collaborations. 3) Facilitate networking and promote brainstorming of new ideas between seismologists at all stages in their careers. 4) Lower barriers to access marine seismology facilities in the non-seismology marine science and onshore seismological communities by providing information on marine seismic facilities and promoting collaborations with marine seismologists. 5) Expand community knowledge of seismic data management and sharable resources. 6) Allow for a broader seismology community, including new scientists, industry, and international participants, and incorporate discussions of topics of common interest. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.