MARGINS Program

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The MARGINS program was initiated by the scientific community and the National Science Foundation and has been designed to elevate our present largely descriptive and qualitative knowledge of continental margins to a level where theory, modeling and simulation, together with field observation and experiment, can yield a clearer understanding of the processes that control margin genesis and evolution. Although continental margins have been traditionally assigned to three distinct tectonic settings, i.e., convergent, divergent and translational, the approach used by the MARGINS program recognizes that a range of fundamental physical and chemical processes that form and deform the surface of the Earth operate at all margins. Tectonic setting may govern the specific expression of a particular process that may vary in different environments. However, a relatively small number of processes, i.e., lithospheric deformation, magmatism, other mass/energy fluxes, sedimentation, and fluid flow, are fundamental to the evolution of the margins. Study of these basic processes, wherever they are best expressed, provides a more logical line of inquiry for understanding the complex nature of continental margins.This process-oriented approach to understanding the entire system of margin evolution requires broadly based interdisciplinary studies and a new class of major experiments. The MARGINS science plan, developed from a series of well attended workshops over the past decade, advocates concentration on several study areas (focus sites) targeted for intensive, multidisciplinary programs of research in which interaction between field experimentalists, numerical modelers and laboratory analysts would occur. MARGINS fosters the involvement of a broad cross-section of investigators in focused, multidisciplinary experiments at these focus sites, to achieve the objectives that could not be accomplished otherwise. Thus the MARGINS Program concentrates on four scientific initiatives at these focus sites - this list will be periodically reviewed and modified.Rupturing Continental Lithosphere Experiment (RCL) ?? Gulf of California and Red Sea focus sitesSubduction Factory Experiment (SubFac) ?? Izu-Bonin-Marianas and Nicaragua-Costa Rica focus sitesSeismogenic Zone Experiment (SEIZE) ?? Nankai and Nicaragua-Costa Rica focus sitesSource-to-Sink Experiment (S2S) ?? Fly River/Gulf of Papua New Guinea and Waipaoa River New Zealand focus sitesInformation and a science plan for the program detailing each initiative can be found on the MARGINS website at http://www.margins.wustl.edu/Home.html. The expected level of funding will be approximately $6.0 million per year for the foreseeable future.

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