ISeS -- Integrated Solid Earth Sciences

FORUMS

2006: ISeS Forum V: Fluids in Fault Zones
American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting (San Francisco)

2005: ISeS Forum IV: Growth of a Continent in Space and Time
American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting (San Francisco)

Rationale: Crustal genesis and evolution requires a four-dimensional understanding of Earth history, architecture, and processes, arising from all disciplines in the solid earth sciences. From the earliest formation of primordial continental crust, to the modern plate tectonic regime, continents have grown vertically and laterally through a combination of chemical and physical processes:  extraction of new crustal material from the mantle,  mafic underplating, differentiation of crust through subsequent melting, accretion of sedimentary prisms and allochthonous terranes, recycling of crust through subduction,  deep burial and uplift of crustal materials, amalgamation and dispersal of continental masses. To reach an integrative understanding of continental evolution is one of the primary scientific goals of ISeS that is of fundamental importance to the EarthScope program.

2004: ISeS Forum III: Rheology of the continental lithosphere
American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting (San Francisco)

This forum had two components: 1) updates and reports, with special focus upon the initial deployment of the EarthScope facility, and 2) a thematic set of presentations on the rheology of the continental lithosphere.

2003: ISeS Forum II: Geo-Cyberinfrastructure and Geochronology
Geological Society of America Annual Meeting (Seattle)
Rationale: 

This forum was designed to a) acquaint the community with new initiatives and resources related to geo-cyberinfrastructure, and b) to inaugurate a community-wide discussion of opportunities and issues related to geochronology. 

2002: ISeS Forum I: Setting Priorities in the Solid Earth Sciences
Geological Society of America Annual Meeting (Denver)
and Town Hall discussion at American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting

Nearly 100 scientists from diverse geological disciplines met to discuss priorities in Solid Earth Sciences. The workshop goals were:
• To delineate the role and fundamental contributions of the Solid Earth Sciences to understanding Earth processes
•  To identify ways to strengthen support for ongoing and future work in the Solid Earth Sciences
•  To provide a Forum for the generation of ideas about directions that the Solid Earth Sciences community should take, a means to organize the community to achieve these goals, and to inform funding agencies, such as NSF, of these goals
•  To initiate change within the community to enable integration of different approaches, data sets and disciplines, and to emphasize the natural partnership between research and education.
 
Workshop participants identified the following four areas as critical to integrated geoscience research in solid Earth sciences:  1. Field work integrated with laboratory and numerical approaches; 2. Numerical modeling; 3. Geochronology; and 4. Education and Outreach.

The ISeS summer school and this website receive support from the National Science Foundation award EAR-0532406. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the ISeS community and coordinating group and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.