Conference: Interior of the Earth Gordon Research Conference and Seminar

Gordon Research Conferences, East Greenwich RI

Investigators

Abstract

This award will partially support the 2023 Interior of the Earth Gordon Research Conference (GRC). This GRC will be the 13th in a series of Interior of the Earth conferences that focus on the structure, dynamics, and evolution of the Earth’s interior. This meeting will bring together scientists from a wide range of subdisciplines within Earth sciences, including geochemistry, geodynamics, mineral physics, rock deformation, seismology, and petrology. We have requested funds to help support travel costs of early-career conference participants (graduate students, postdoctoral scientists, and early-career faculty). The GRC will take place at Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, Massachusetts from June 18-23, 2023 and will be held in conjunction with a Gordon Research Seminar (GRS) from June 17-18 at the same venue. The GRS is aimed at an audience of graduate students and postdoctoral scholars and provides a unique environment for these early-career scientists to present and exchange state of the art ideas and results. The travel support provided by this award will help to fund conference attendance for early-career scientists to attend the GRS and/or the GRC. The theme of the 2023 GRC is “Material Properties of the Mantle and Core and their Constraints, Causes and Consequences for Earth Evolution.” This theme will engage scientists who work on a range of depths within the Earth, from the lithospheric mantle to the core, and will enable discussion on the structure and dynamics of the Earth’s interior through the prism of the properties of the materials that make up its mantle and core. Understanding these properties – for example, rheology, composition, elasticity, and thermal behavior – is key for understanding the inner workings of our planet. The conference will encompass keynote talks that emphasize new (unpublished results) as well as poster presentations, which will provide the opportunity for participants (particularly early-career scientists) to present their work in poster format. Networking by younger scientists will be greatly facilitated by the preceding GRS, which has the theme “Evolution of the Interior Structure of Earth from the Magma Ocean Stage to the Present.” In constructing the program and in advertising for the meeting, we have been conscious of diversity along a number of dimensions. We have placed particular emphasis on giving speaking opportunities to early-career scientists; having a significant proportion of early-career researchers and first-time attendees as Keynote Speakers and Discussion Leaders will encourage greater participation across the global community of deep Earth researchers. The preceding GRS meeting will include a mentorship session that focuses on communication and careers in Earth Science. 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.