UTIG RESEARCH PROJECTS ARCHIVECaribbean researchSubduction to Strike-slip Transitions
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| Paul Mann Institute for Geophysics University of Texas at Austin 4412 Spicewood Springs Rd. Austin, TX 78759 phone: (512) 471-0452 fax: (512) 471-8844 email: paulm@utig.ig.utexas.edu |
Nancy Grindlay Dept. of Earth Sciences University of North Carolina 601 South College Road Wilmington, NC 28403-3297 phone: (910) 962-3736 fax: (910) 962-7077 email: grindlayn@uncwil.edu |
James F. Dolan Dept. of Earth Sciences Univ. of Southern California Los Angeles, CA phone: (213) 740-8599 fax: (213) 740-0011 email: dolan@earth.usc.edu |
Application deadline is September 1, 1998.
A Geological Society of America Penrose Conference, "Subduction to Strike-slip
Transitions on Plate Boundaries," will be held January 18-24, 1999, in Puerto Plata,
Dominican Republic. The location within the active subduction to strike-slip transition
area of the North America-Caribbean plate boundary zone will allow us to take a two-day
field trip along the primary strike-slip fault (Septentrional fault zone) within the plate
boundary zone. We will also visit shoreline features recording recent activity of the
offshore subduction boundary that included a magnitude 8.1 earthquake in 1946.
The meeting will assemble a multidisciplinary group of the world's leading experts from
the U.S., the Caribbean, New Zealand, Latin America, Europe and other areas. The purpose
of the meeting will be to foster discussion of new ideas and develop associations between
ideas drawn from different disciplines in earth science. Talks and discussions will focus
on a better characterization of the tectonic controls and deformational effects of
strike-slip to subduction transition areas. Experts in geology, seismology,
paleoseismology, geodesy, modeling of geological and geophysical data, and deep seismic
imaging will discuss deformation at all levels in lithosphere and mantle of subduction to
strike-slip transition areas. This information will provide insights into the seismogenic
mechanisms for the large and commonly destructive earthquakes that affect these areas.
This meeting will focus on the manifestation of both tectonic styles in
tectonically-active areas including the Dominican Republic, Trinidad and eastern
Venezuela, Panama and Costa Rica, the Scotia Sea, northern California, eastern Alaska, the
western Aleutian arc and Kamchatka, Japan, Taiwan, the Marianas trench, New Guinea and
Irian Jaya, New Zealand and the Macquarie Ridge, Indonesia, Thailand, Pakistan, and the
Alpine-Mediterranean area. Experts on other transition areas not listed here or on
non-site specific modeling work are welcome as participants.
Discussion topics by keynote speakers and participants will include the following:
How is plate motion partitioned between outboard subduction systems and inboard strike-slip systems and how do these features interact to produce the observed patterns of diffuse seismicity and active faulting? Is there any evidence for linked seismic events in the two systems?
How does the subduction boundary control the geometry of the adjacent strike-slip boundary and vice versa? What is the relationship at depth between the inboard strike-slip boundary and the slab subducted at the outboard subduction zone?
Why are strike-slip to subduction transition areas characterized by deep trenches that are the sites of some of the world's largest gravity minima?
How does the behavior of subducted slabs in subduction to strike-slip transition areas affect upper crustal deformation in the transition region? What is the role of slab rupture at depth, interaction of two opposed slabs at depth, extension of subducted slabs, and completely detached slabs like the ones present in the mantle beneath the Dominican Republic.
What is the sedimentary and structural record of subduction to strike-slip transition along ancient plate boundaries. Is there a systematic and predictable progression of structures that indicates that such a transition has occurred? What clues from these ancient events can be used to better understand active boundaries?
What is the seismic and tsunami hazard associated with a subduction to strike-slip transition areas? Can answers to tectonically-related questions 1-4 above be used to better understand and perhaps reduce these hazards?
The plan of the meeting will include three days of oral and poster presentations and
two days for a field trip in the northern Dominican Republic. Participants will arrive in
Puerto Plata via Puerto Plata international airport on Monday, January 18. January 19 will
be devoted to talks providing an overview of the geology, tectonics and seismology of
transition areas worldwide. January 20 will be devoted to oral introductions of
participants with poster presentations along with time for informal interactions at the
posters. The two day field trip across the northern Dominican Republic will be on January
21-22 with the first day focussing on the Septentrional fault and the second day focussing
on paleoliquefaction features, shoreline features and the Camu fault near Puerto Plata.
The final day of the conference on January 23 will be devoted to theoretical
considerations of transition areas along with a final discussion that attempts to reach a
consensus on the questions raised above along with the observations made during the field
trip. Participants will depart from Puerto Plata international airport on Sunday morning,
January 24.
The conference is limited to 65 participants. We encourage interested graduate students
to apply: some partial subsidies will be available. The registration fee, which covers
lodging, meals, field trips, and all other conference costs except personal incidentals,
has not been determined at this time. Participants will be responsible for transportation
to and from the conference. Further information on travel will be provided in the letter
of invitation.
Application deadline is August 1, 1998. Potential participants should send a letter of
application to Paul Mann (address above), including a brief statement of interests, the
relevance of the applicant's recent work to the themes of the meeting, and a proposed
title of their presentation (oral or poster; poster preferred)
Followup studies to 1999 Penrose meeting:
Mann, P., Grindlay, N., and Dolan, J., 1999, Penrose conference report:
Subduction to strike-slip transition on plate boundaries: GSA Today,
July, 1999, p. 14-16. UTIG contribution no. 1432.
Frohlich, C., 2001, Display and quantitative assessment of distributions of earthquake focal mechanisms, Geophysical Journal International, volume 144, p. 300-308.
Bilich, A., Frohlich, C., and Mann, P., 2001, Global seismicity characteristics of subduction-to-strike-slip transitions: Journal of Geophysical Research, v. 106, p. 19,443-19,452.
Dolan, J. F., and Mann, P., editors, 1998, Active Strike-slip and Collisional Tectonics of the Northern Caribbean Plate Boundary Zone, Geological Society of America Special Paper 326, 174 p.
Mann, P., Prentice, C., Burr, G., Peņa, L., and Taylor, F. W., 1998, Tectonic geomorphology and paleoseismology of the Septentrional fault zone, Dominican Republic, in J. F. Dolan and P. Mann, editors, Active Strike-slip and Collisional Tectonics of the Northern Caribbean Plate Boundary Zone, Geological Society of America Special Paper 324, p. 63-123.
Jansma, P., Lopez, A., Mattioli, G., DeMets, C., Dixon, T., Mann, P., and Calais, E., 2000, Microplate tectonics in the northeastern Caribbean as constrained by Global Positioning (GPS) geodesy, Tectonics, v. 19, p. 1021-1037.
Calais, E., Mazabraud, Y., Mercier de Lepinay, B., Mann, P., Mattioli, G., and Jansma, P., Strain partitioning and fault slip rates in the northeastern Caribbean from GPS measurements, Geophysical Research Letters, v. 29, no. 18, 1856, doi:10:1029/2002GL015397, 2002.
Prentice, C., Mann, P., Pena, L., and Burr, G., 2002, Slip rate and earthquake recurrence along the central Septentrional fault, North American-Caribbean plate boundary, Dominican Republic, Journal of Geophysical Research, v. 108, no. B3, 2149, doi:10.1029/2001JB000442, 2003.
Mann, P., Calais, E., Ruegg, J. C., DeMets, C., Dixon, T., Jansma, P., and Mattioli, G., Oblique collision in the northeastern Caribbean from GPS measurements and geological observations, Tectonics, v. 21, no. 6, 1057, doi:10.1029?2001TC001304, 2002.