Structural Geology and Tectonics Division Newsletter

Volume 16, Number 2 , September 1997

| A Note from the Editors | Chairperson's Message | Major Changes in the GSA Annual Meeting | gOcad Group | Student Research Grants | SG&T in Industry | NSF News | Active Tectonics | Have You Heard | Announcements | The Resource Bin | Opinions | JSG Happenings | Structural Geology & Computers | Theme Session Summary | Future Meetings, Conferences, & Courses | GSA Annual Meeting | Biographies for Candidates for 2nd Vice Chair | Ballots and Forms |

A Note from the Editors :Table of Contents

Greetings from the editors' desks! This is our inaugural issue for producing camera-ready copy for GSA; we hope you find the format both organizationally and aesthetically pleasing. Neither of us have been able to devote as much time as we would have liked to "tweak" the formatting as Greg has been in China since mid-July and Scott has been enjoying the trials and tribulations of first-time fatherhood (a son born on August 3). This issue, as usual, has greatly benefitted from contributions & announcements from many Division members...keep 'em coming! A special thanks to our columnists Tom Wright and Ben van der Pluijm. Please send professional and technical opinions, announcements, career changes (for Have You Heard...?), not-for-profit offerings (for the Resource Bin) and industry news (for SG&T in Industry) for future issues to either Greg or Scott. The deadline for inclusion of materials in the next issue will be January 16, 1998. Please send lengthy items on a Mac diskette, as email text, or as an email attachment (Mac Word 5.1 preferred).

Greg & Scott

My last chair's message was devoted to questions about declining division membership, GSA annual meeting quirks, and some questions I posed based on that narrative. That message definitely attracted attention judging by the number of responses I got from the membership and it also produced that classic squeaking wheel effect--I found myself put on a committee. The upshot is that there are some big changes afoot in GSA and the main focus of my message is to inform the membership of those changes. In particular, you need to know about major changes in the GSA Annual Meeting, but toward the end of this message I also want to ask for input from our membership on other meeting formats that GSA might consider. I truly think some of these changes will make a huge difference in GSA and might ultimately eliminate most of the concerns I raised in my last chairs message.

As a background, GSA has been contemplating significant changes to the Annual meeting for several years. This has included dealing with factors that have nothing to do with the technical program but are logistical problems of escalating annual meeting costs. Indeed, logistical problems are the big factor responsible for plans to have a fixed site or series of fixed sites for the annual meeting. In addition, however, GSA has long been wrestling with some of the technical program issues I raised in the last newsletter about the real and perceived differences between the AGU meetings and GSA meetings. The logistical problems made it clear that the annual meeting system would not be workable if GSA returned to only a few sites or one site--this system put far too much of a burden on the local groups in say, Denver, where the meeting may return every 1-3 years. Similarly, because GSA has relied heavily on local committee volunteers for the technical program issues (in the past, the Program committee consisted of past and future technical program chairs), that committee tended to lack focus on long term program development issues. (note: I can speak from experience here having been on this old committee because in that system one tended to operate like American businesses--your interest tends to be on about a 1 to 2 year time span that effects you directly with little focus on long-term issues, not because you aren't interested in longer term issues, rather because you don't have time to focus on those issues with all the other efforts related to developing the Annual Meeting).

Because of these two factors, GSA formed a new Annual Program Committee (APC) whose task it was to look into some of these issues from logistics of the meeting to longer term programming issues. By opening my mouth (keyboard actually), I got added to this committee at a late date and in late February we met in Boulder. Members of this division should be aware that we were well represented at this meeting because the committee chair (Sharon Mosher), John Bartley and I, were on the committee and were either past or present members of the SG&T management board. This was a truly startling meeting for me because this was one of the rare occasions where I have seen a committee actually do something. We should all really thank Sharon Mosher for this accomplishment because she really made the thing work. For the division and all GSA members there are several key changes. Sharon's letter to division chairs is included later in the newsletter explaining some of the changes, but I'd like to reiterate a couple things here.

First, perhaps the biggest change is the way GSA symposia and theme sessions will be run in the future. The old system was a very stifling "entitlement" system where only divisions and associated societies could sponsor symposia. That had, I believe, a serious negative impact on large divisions like J¤öplaced extre'pimits on programming. The APC decided to replace these sessions with two new types of sessions: Keynote sessions and Topical sessions. Keynote sessions will be an expansion of what is now a single Keynote Symposium chosen by the local Technical Program Committee. The new sessions will be non-concurrent sessions with one or two per day. Keynotes will be selected from proposals submitted to the APC by Divisions, Associate Societies, or GSA members. These sessions will emphasize high profile, general interest sessions and all speakers will generally be invited. Council has agreed in principal to provide funds for some travel support for speakers in these sessions. Keynote symposia will be very distinct from Topical Sessions. Topical sessions will be a hybrid between the present Theme Session format and Symposia. These sessions will be a mix of invited and volunteered talks. Like Theme sessions, any GSA member can submit a proposal for a Topical Session, and Divisions can sponsor as many of these sessions as they wish (within reason of course). An important feature of these sessions, both Keynote and Topical Sessions, is that conveners will be given a lot of flexibility in how they wish to run these sessions; e.g. if they wish to break for a discussion session, have variable time slots, have an informal poster session during a break, etc.

This change will be phased in with partial implementation at the Toronto meeting and full implementation at the 1999 Denver meeting. It is, I believe, extremely important for this division. If the division membership comes forward with a series of strong proposals for keynote and topical sessions we could make a truly spectacular meeting. With these changes it is now up to you, the division membership. So if you want to improve the GSA annual meeting, think about, and submit, proposals for topical and keynote sessions for the Toronto meeting!

Finally, there are some other developments that are very relevant to the division, and some of these still have some room for discussion: 1) a change to a Sunday through Wednesday technical program (benefits are costs, downside is the impact on field trips and short courses); 2) a possible implementation of a new "field conference" format (the need for this format arises from the restricted meeting sites as well as meeting day changes--the great advantage is field trip opportunities can be enlarged so that the trip is run during ideal weather conditions but travel costs may increase for a special field conference). For these last two issues if you feel strongly about them, please let me know and I'll pass that info on to the APC.

Given these changes in the GSA annual meeting, I want to complete this message by posing a few questions of the membership, including a formal question that is included with your ballot in this newsletter. In response to my last newsletter report, many people gave me some excellent feedback, but two suggestions really stood out for me:

Win Means suggested that GSA and AGU should cease fighting over turf and that the best solution for all of us would be if we could form a North American equivalent of the EUGG, the AUGG--a biennial or quadrennial meeting that brought all of the geological and geophysical societies from the continent together. This could begin with AGU and GSA, but really should ultimately include GAC and UGM, and possible other groups. I personally think this is a wonderful idea. I found Win's suggestion particularly interesting because this almost happened because both societies seriously contemplated a joint 2000 meeting. One of the reasons this didn't work, as I understand it, had to do with programming issues and money. With some of the programming changes at GSA, I wonder if the money issues become minor and time has come to implement Win's idea?

The second suggestion I wanted to share was from Mark Brandon and it is his suggestion that I included on the ballotMy last chair's message was devoted to questions about declining division membership, GSA annual meeting quirks, and some questions I posed based on that narrative. That message definitely attracted attention judging by the number of responses I got from the membership and it also produced that classic squeaking wheel effect--I found myself put on a committee. The upshot is that there are some big changes afoot in GSA and the main focus of my message is to inform the membership of those changes. In particular, you need to know about major changes in the GSA Annual Meeting, but toward the end of this message I also want to ask for input from our membership on other meeting formats that GSA might consider. I truly think some of these changes will make a huge difference in GSA and might ultimately eliminate most of the concerns I raised in my last chairs message.

As a background, GSA has been contemplating significant changes to the Annual meeting for several years. This has included dealing with factors that have nothing to do with the technical program but are logistical problems of escalating annual meeting costs. Indeed, logistical problems are the big factor responsible for plans to have a fixed site or series of fixed sites for the annual meeting. In addition, however, GSA has long been wrestling with some of the technical program issues I raised in the last newsletter about the real and perceived differences between the AGU meetings and GSA meetings. The logistical problems made it clear that the annual meeting system would not be workable if GSA returned to only a few sites or one site--this system put far too much of a burden on the local groups in say, Denver, where the meeting may return every 1-3 years. Similarly, because GSA has relied heavily on local committee volunteers for the technical program issues (in the past, the Program committee consisted of past and future technical program chairs), that committee tended to lack focus on long term program development issues. (note: I can speak from experience here having been on this old committee because in that system one tended to operate like American businesses--your interest tends to be on about a 1 to 2 year time span that effects you directly with little focus on long-term issues, not because you aren't interested in longer term issues, rather because you don't have time to focus on those issues with all the other efforts related to developing the Annual Meeting).

Because of these two factors, GSA formed a new Annual Program Committee (APC) whose task it was to look into some of these issues from logistics of the meeting to longer term programming issues. By opening my mouth (keyboard actually), I got added to this committee at a late date and in late February we met in Boulder. Members of this division should be aware that we were well represented at this meeting because the committee chair (Sharon Mosher), John Bartley and I, were on the committee and were either past or present members of the SG&T management board. This was a truly startling meeting for me because this was one of the rare occasions where I have seen a committee actually do something. We should all really thank Sharon Mosher for this accomplishment because she really made the thing work. For the division and all GSA members there are several key changes. Sharon's letter to division chairs is included later in the newsletter explaining some of the changes, but I'd like to reiterate a couple things here.

First, perhaps the biggest change is the way GSA symposia and theme sessions will be run in the future. The old system was a very stifling "entitlement" system where only divisions and associated societies could sponsor symposia. That had, I believe, a serious negative impact on large divisions like J¤öplaced extre'pimits on programming. The APC decided to replace these sessions with two new types of sessions: Keynote sessions and Topical sessions. Keynote sessions will be an expansion of what is now a single Keynote Symposium chosen by the local Technical Program Committee. The new sessions will be non-concurrent sessions with one or two per day. Keynotes will be selected from proposals submitted to the APC by Divisions, Associate Societies, or GSA members. These sessions will emphasize high profile, general interest sessions and all speakers will generally be invited. Council has agreed in principal to provide funds for some travel support for speakers in these sessions. Keynote symposia will be very distinct from Topical Sessions. Topical sessions will be a hybrid between the present Theme Session format and Symposia. These sessions will be a mix of invited and volunteered talks. Like Theme sessions, any GSA member can submit a proposal for a Topical Session, and Divisions can sponsor as many of these sessions as they wish (within reason of course). An important feature of these sessions, both Keynote and Topical Sessions, is that conveners will be given a lot of flexibility in how they wish to run these sessions; e.g. if they wish to break for a discussion session, have variable time slots, have an informal poster session during a break, etc.

This change will be phased in with partial implementation at the Toronto meeting and full implementation at the 1999 Denver meeting. It is, I believe, extremely important for this division. If the division membership comes forward with a series of strong proposals for keynote and topical sessions we could make a truly spectacular meeting. With these changes it is now up to you, the division membership. So if you want to improve the GSA annual meeting, think about, and submit, proposals for topical and keynote sessions for the Toronto meeting!

Finally, there are some other developments that are very relevant to the division, and some of these still have some room for discussion: 1) a change to a Sunday through Wednesday technical program (benefits are costs, downside is the impact on field trips and short courses); 2) a possible implementation of a new "field conference" format (the need for this format arises from the restricted meeting sites as well as meeting day changes--the great advantage is field trip opportunities can be enlarged so that the trip is run during ideal weather conditions but travel costs may increase for a special field conference). For these last two issues if you feel strongly about them, please let me know and I'll pass that info on to the APC.

Given these changes in the GSA annual meeting, I want to complete this message by posing a few questions of the membership, including a formal question that is included with your ballot in this newsletter. In response to my last newsletter report, many people gave me some excellent feedback, but two suggestions really stood out for me:

Win Means suggested that GSA and AGU should cease fighting over turf and that the best solution for all of us would be if we could form a North American equivalent of the EUGG, the AUGG--a biennial or quadrennial meeting that brought all of the geological and geophysical societies from the continent together. This could begin with AGU and GSA, but really should ultimately include GAC and UGM, and possible other groups. I personally think this is a wonderful idea. I found Win's suggestion particularly interesting because this almost happened because both societies seriously contemplated a joint 2000 meeting. One of the reasons this didn't work, as I understand it, had to do with programming issues and money. With some of the programming changes at GSA, I wonder if the money issues become minor and time has come to implement Win's idea?

The second suggestion I wanted to share was from Mark Brandon and it is his suggestion that I included on the ballot (note: this is not a formal referendum...it is a simple straw vote). To paraphrase Mark, hopefully relatively accurately, tectonics is really at the center of about 90% of the solid earth geosciences yet results of tectonic studies are presented in many different formats--not just the old AGU vs. GSA, but many other venues. That produces a somewhat fragmented approach to the presentation of results of tectonic studies--essentially the "qualitative vs. quantitative" issue I raised in the last newsletter. In Europe many of us are familiar with the various "tectonic studies groups" that hold meetings in various countries at different times. The question is, should we consider forming a similar organization, under the umbrella of this division, to hold an annual meeting focused on tectonic problems? There are a number of ways a meeting like this could be run. Here is a smattering of those ideas based on conversations I've had with a number of people over the last few weeks. One option would be a simple open meeting with a random sampling of tectonic studies throughout the continent. Presumably this would be run as a meeting with one (or two?) oral sessions and a lot of poster sessions. Other options might be a more focused meeting format--something similar to a Penrose conference, but more formal and with a broader topic. Topics might be something regional--e.g. the meeting might move around, possible in anti-rotation with the GSA annual meeting, and focused on regional tectonics. Alternatively, meetings might be focused on broad topics--e.g. convergent plate margins.

There are clearly some very big implications to forming a meeting group like this. This meeting would presumably be held in the spring--a time of the year that is already deadly for meetings because both GSA sections and AGU spring meeting have steadily declined in attendance in the past few years. This could, of course, be interpreted in two ways; it could mean there is a void in meetings attracting people or alternatively, it could mean a meeting like this was doomed to failure before it started. You should also realize that if other divisions followed our lead, it could be the death of GSA sections--something that some would considerable desirable, but others would be adamantly against.

What do you think of this idea? The ballot contains some simple yes or no questions, but most people would probably like to qualify their answer in some way. So if you have thoughts on this, please send me an e-mail note (tlpgg@uno.edu). I'll try to collect those responses and after the activity dies down I'll try to post those comments at the division web site (remember this if you submit me a note, and let me know if don't want your note posted).

Terry Pavlis

MAJOR CHANGES IN THE GSA ANNUAL MEETING Table of Contents

(The following is from a letter sent by Sharon Mosher to all division chairs)

GSA Council has agreed to changes in the Annual Meeting Program which will allow you the opportunity for an expanded and more flexible program. The Divisions and Associated Societies play an extremely important role in organizing and running the Annual Meeting, and we do not foresee any lessening of that role with these new changes. We look forward to working with you in making these changes so that the Annual Meeting program is better for all of us. I want to thank all of you who responded to my call for suggestions and to encourage you all to provide us with further suggestions and comments.

The highlights of the changes include:

We have merged the Symposia and Theme Sessions by taking the most successful elements of each and combining them to create Topical Sessions. The new format allows a mixing of invited and volunteered papers for more dynamic sessions. As in the past, Associated Societies, Divisions, and individual GSA members may propose and organize these sessions, however, the control of these sessions remains with the JTPC representative of the Associated Societies and Divisions. These sessions will be given more flexibility in scheduling than previously allowed by GSA.

We have expanded the single yearly Keynote Symposium currently chosen by the local Technical Program Committee to multiple, non-concurrent Keynote Sessions with one or two per day. Associated Societies, Divisions, and individual GSA members will be encouraged to organize these Keynote Sessions. Council has approved, in principle, funding to support these sessions. These sessions will also have flexibility in scheduling.

We have endorsed the Hot Topics at lunch program. We will try an experiment this year and accept abstracts after the summer for "Late Breaking Research" Sessions. Because we hold the Annual meeting in October, a summer abstract deadline is necessary. This new session will allow exciting results generated over the summer to be presented at GSA, rather than at another meeting with an early fall deadline.

We will expand the poster sessions as much as possible as a means of allowing more papers to be presented without increasing the total number of sessions. No changes have been proposed for the regular volunteered sessions.

To have a broader representation of sub disciplines in the decision making process with regards to non-general sessions, we expanded the group that selects these sessions from the local Technical Program Chair(s) to the entire Annual Program Committee, which includes the Technical Program Chair. Although, in practice, most of these sessions are approved automatically, and the Technical Program Chair steps in only when there is an obvious overlap, etc., we believe that the APC with a wide sub-discipline distribution should help oversee the selection of these sessions to insure a diverse, representative program.

The APC plans on phasing in these changes over the next three Annual meetings with all of them implemented by the 1999 Denver Annual Meeting. A few changes, such as the "Late Breaking Research" and expanded poster sessions, will be implemented at the Salt Lake meeting. We hope that by introducing them gradually, we can have a smoother transition and will have time to incorporate your suggestions.

I am again asking for your comments and suggestions before we begin to implement these changes. Many of you have already let me know how these changes will affect your program and have made constructive suggestions for modifications. Some have pointed out other issues for us to address. If you have not responded already, or have further thoughts, please send me your comments. Also, what else about the Annual Program causes problems or would you like to see changed? We have the opportunity to make changes in the way GSA runs its Annual Meeting, so let us know anything we can do to help make your job easier or the result better. Do you have ideas you would like us to consider trying? Each group has different needs and the details of what we have proposed effect each group differently. We will work with you to make the impact of these changes positive for all.

The APC will meet in August to discuss these issues and to start implementation of the new programming. In the meantime, we will be considering the suggestions I already have, some of which have been already incorporated in our plan. I will be available at this address all summer. If you would like to talk to me personally, I will be working at home most of the summer and can be reached at 512-459-6709. If you need a new copy of the original proposal, please let me know and I will send you one. Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,

Sharon Mosher, GSA Annual Program Committee, Chair

GOCAD Consortium creates Structural Geology SIG Table of Contents

GOCAD is a powerful computer application developed for modeling 3D geological objects. In June, the GOCAD Consortium created a Special Interest Group for Structural Geology. The purpose of the interest group is to facilitate transfer of structural geology technology between the structural geology and GOCAD communities.

An e-mail list of interested persons is currently being compiled. Anyone interested in the Structural Geology SIG should send e-mail to Don Medwedeff (dmedwedeff@arco.com) with the following:

Name and organization

E-mail address

Current use of GOCAD, if any

Any future plans for use.

The GOCAD Research Program was initiated in 1989 by the Computer Science Department of Geology at Nancy (France). The goal is to develop a new computer aided approach to the modeling of geologic objects. This approach is specifically adapted to geophysical, geological and reservoir engineering applications. The program is currently supported by an international consortium, managed by the Association Scientifique pour la Geologie et ses Applications, and open to all companies and research institutions wishing to become sponsors.

GOCAD is designed to aid in the construction and manipulation of realistic 3D geological objects. Tools exist for the incorporation of points, lines, surfaces and volumes, based on a wide variety of input data. Surfaces and volumes can be gridded orthogonally or irregularly, and assigned attributes, either as continuous functions or as discrete points. An extensive toolkit allows for transformation of data formats, interpolation between data points, and manipulation of objects, as well as interaction with other software. Anyone interested in GOCAD should visit their website at http://www.ensg.u nancy.fr/GOCAD.

SG&T's Student Research Grant Winners Table of Contents

The Structural Geology & Tectonics Division is happy to announce the recipients of this year's student research grants. They are Jeffrey C. Evans of Utah State University (advisor: Susanne Janecke) and Paul Kapp of UCLA (advisers: An Yin and Mark Harrison) . The two students, whose projects are described below, were selected by the Management Board of the Division from a number of candidates forwarded to the Board by the Society.

Evans' project is part of his master's thesis, which is entitled "Structural and tectonic evolution of the syn-rift Salt Lake Formation (Miocene), northeastern Basin and Range". Evans plans to produce detailed geologic maps of several extension-related folds in the Cache Valley basin of southeastern Idaho and use this information to test the hypothesis that a low-angle, Miocene-age detachment fault was active in this area. In addition to detailed field mapping, Evans proposes to do three-dimensional strain analysis on some of these folds and to determine the depositional environment and tectonic history of the Salt Lake Formation, a presumed synextensional sedimentary basin fill deposit.

Kapp's research project pertains to his doctoral research entitled "Structural evolution of the Fenghou Shan, northern Tibet, and its implications for the formation of the Tibetan plateau". His research will focus on unraveling the field relationships exposed in the Fenghuo Shan, a Tertiary fold-thrust belt which is partially superimposed on the Late Triassic-Early Jurassic suture between the Qiangtang and Kun Lun terranes. This work will involve field mapping along two transects, 40AR/39Ar age dating, measurement of stratigraphic sections, and construction of balanced cross sections through the area. He hopes this work will shed insight into the magnitude, timing, and style of crustal thickening of Tibet.

The Division wants to congratulate both students for their excellent proposals submitted to the Society, and wishes them success in completing their research projects (hats off to advisors Janecke, Yin and Harrison as well!). The Division hopes that both students and advisors will attend the SG&T business and awards meeting in Salt Lake City (Oct. 20-23). Thanks also to other students submitting proposals for consideration!

SG&T in Industry Table of Contents

The Shell E&P Co. structural geology R&D group in Houston (Bellaire), TX is experiencing growth these days. Recently, they have added Chris Hedlund, an Eric Erlsev (Colorado State University) PhD; and transferred in John Karlo, Larry Gibson and Chi-Chen Feng, geologists and geophysics with many years experience with Shell domestically and internationally. They soon will be joined by Brent Couzens (MS 1992 at Tennessee with Bill Dunne), who is presently completing his PhD with Dave Wiltschko at Texas A&M. Shell is focusing their long-term research on the geometries, kinematics, and mechanics of growth faults and extensional salt structures as well as continuing to perform short-term service projects for numerous domestic and international subsidiaries. They are presently seeing a "significant growth period", and believe that industry demand for structural geologists with basic experience interpreting complex structures, preferably based on original field work, is very high.

Exxon Production Research also is experiencing some changes. Tim Davis (B.S. DePauw Univ, PhD 1993 at Tennessee with Bob Hatcher) has left the North Carolina Survey to take a position at EPR. He will soon be joined by Dave Olgaard, who will be moving from the ETH (Zurich). Jay Jackson will soon transfer from EPR to Esso Australia for a 3 year assignment. Lastly, Doug Goff moved from EPR to become a senior geologist at Chevron Research. Doug also just got married recently...congrats Doug and Gaye!
Shangyou Nie (PhD, U. Chicago; Postdoc, UCLA) left Amoco earlier this year to accept a position with Petroconsultants in Geneva. He will be the Editor of their Asia Newsletter.

Collaborative Research
The June 1 deadline resulted in 87 proposals requesting a total of $11,577,658. By July 1, all proposals had been read and assigned reviewers. In September, these proposals will be considered by the panel and starting October 1, we expect to fund about $3.4M (half of our annual budget) on the highly rated ones. In this round there seemed to be an increase in the type of project we call "collaborative research", in which investigators at two or more institutions wish to work together on a common project. There are two ways to have people at two or more institutions participate-by subcontract and by dual submittal of the project from each institution involved. The subcontract route is best used when specific services or products are envisioned, such as age dates or chemical analyses. One institution is the "lead" or primary institution, and that institution receives all of the grant, and retains control of the subcontract as well, paying for the subcontract as services are rendered. On the other hand, when PIs at different institutions want to work together more or less as equal partners but contribute different expertise, the subcontract option is less satisfactory. Each PI needs control over his own budget, and due to the level of involvement the title "subcontractor" sounds too subordinate. Deans also are more impressed if someone reels in a "grant" than a mere "subcontract" even if the overhead is the same! There is a way to do this. Basically, the principals get together and write a common text for the project. Then each PI goes back to his institution and fills out cover pages, budgets, budget explanations etc for just their part of the overall project. Each institution then takes their stuff and attaches the common text, makes 20 copies and sends it off to NSF. We log-in each version as a separate proposal, but pick a common group of reviewers. If it is successful in the review process, a separate grant is made to each institution. From this the following corollaries should apply.

Reviewers have to add budgets from all universities involved to arrive at the total request for the project.
You should not be listed as a "Co-PI" on the other institutions cover page (a Co-PI is one authorized to charge items to a grant account, along with the PI).
Your proposal should list only your "results of prior research" if applicable (the other version should have theirs only).
Your proposal should have your CV, and not those for your collaborator.
Your cover sheet should have your business officer's signature only.
There is no "lead" or "primary" institution. Each will have a stand-alone grant if you are successful.
If you get mad with your collaborator at the other institution, you have control of your grant and they have control over theirs.

If you decide to submit a proposal this way, please put the words "Collaborative Research:" before your commonly agreed-upon title on the cover page. That helps us find all the versions. Similarly, it helps to include on the cover page, in the project summary, or introduction which institutions and which other PIs are involved, andwho they are. If all institutions send in 20 copies of the full proposal, reviewers obviously will get a copy of the (identical) text in each version. To save trees, you may decide to have one institution send in 20 full copies, and have other institution(s) send in one full (original signature) copy plus 19 that have everything except the common text. Note that this does not imply "primary" and "secondary" status. I need one complete copy for the permanent file, but reviewers and the panel can do with the short version for details and go to the version with the text to read about your overall project.

The Review Process
In the interest of helping you understand and deal with the present competitive levels, this is another detailed explanation into how parts of the review process works. In the last issue, we discussed what happens to a proposal from the time you mail it until we have enough reviews returned to take the proposal to the panel meeting. In essence each proposal is read, and a list of reviewers is assigned that, in aggregate, covers most of the aspects of the proposal. This part of the peer review process is long on input on the specifics of a proposal but short on comparisons between proposals submitted for the same competition. After all, each reviewer has seen at most only one other proposal out of the approximately 100 under consideration. The Tectonics Program uses a 6 member panel to provide that input. Their main job is to assess the relative importance, likelihood of success, and cost effectiveness of the whole set of proposals under consideration. A good dose of statesmanship is a prerequisite for being on the panel, as is a reasonably broad outlook, because we want advice and guidance from the panel on relative merits among proposals, not so much on nitty-gritty technical details. Obviously in actual practice, this distinction is blurred-many mail reviewers provide insights into overall importance and the panel does contribute to technical aspects as well.

In preparing for the panel meeting, there are several patterns or types of situations in which we find ourselves. They are from worst to best:
1. It is 2 weeks before the panel and this proposal has zero (or one or two) reviews returned.
2. There are 3 or more reviews returned, but they are wildly different.
3. There are just 3 reviews returned and they are consistent with one another, but they all come from those chosen to cover sub-subject X, and we have no input from those in subject Y or Z.
4. We have plenty of reviews (4-6), but some are obviously more superficial than others.
5. We have 4-6 reviews that, in aggregate, cover the important parts and present a clear, consistent review.

If you were in our shoes, which one would you be happiest to take before the panel? If it was your proposal, which one? What do we actually do with reviews before the panel meeting? We read your reviews and jot down the substantive comments, phone and beg for reviews when we don't have enough, identify "outlier" reviews and try to reconcile them, record and average scores, and write up a consensus (if any) before the panelists arrive. The panel meanwhile has received two large boxes of proposals to read. They have been told which reviewers were chosen to review each proposal, but they won't know the outcome until the panel meeting.

Just before they arrive, each panel member sends in a "straw" (non-binding) score. We average these panel scores. At the start of the meeting we pass out two "priority" lists- one by average mail score and the other by average panel "straw" score. Both are simply to help organize the discussion and to make efficient use of panelist time. The panel meeting normally begins by discussing proposals high on their "straw" priority list. They say what they think are strengths and weaknesses, listen to what reviewers have had to say, stare at the budget and finally vote on the proposal. One panel member writes a "panel summary" on behalf of the panel for each proposal discussed. Drafts of these are read before the whole panel and correct or edited if need be. Commonly, the panel will from time to time, shift to the mail "priority" list, so as to not to ignore proposals that have received strong mail reviews, but lower initial or "straw" panel scores. Along about the second afternoon, the panel (and program staff) surveys all remaining proposals, and a yet to-be-discussed list is agreed upon. These proposals commonly are those that have high mail review scores, but ranked lower in the "straw" panel vote, or those that caught the attention of any one of the panelists or program directors. Proposals whose competitiveness is well below the funding level in both the mail review and in the panel preliminary review, and about which there are no controversies may not be discussed by the panel, and therefore receive no written panel summary. However, the fact that you do not receive a panel summary does not mean that your proposal was not read by the panel. On the contrary, all proposals are read and ranked by the panel. Finally, after all these have been discussed and voted on, the panel reviews the scores they have given, and agonize over their work-fine-tuning their final priority list before they dash for the plane home.

Typically, the panel has deliberated and prioritized proposals that, in aggregate, ask for somewhere between2 and 3 times the available funds for this panel submission. They have left town having given us their best attempt at prioritizing the proposals considered. Our job is to take the fundamentally different priority lists- the mail reviews on one side and the final panel priority list on the other, and come up with the program priority list that fits the program budget. That list resembles, but does not match either of these. But more about that next time.

Program Balance
How do we in the tectonics program deal with the issue of "program balance"? This question logically should wait till we have finished describing the rest of the review system, but in view of the ongoing discussion in the Newsletter initiated by Dave Pollard and Atilla Aydin, here is an overview from our perspective. The following factors play a part in determining "balance" among the various subjects, investigators, and sub-disciplines involved in any program.

1. Each year NSF management allocates more or less funds to programs as they judge best, often with advice from Advisory Committees (forward) and "Committee of Visitors" (hind sight), and of course, within overall Congressional funding levels and specifications.
2. NSF upper management from time to time puts out announcements of opportunities, special competitions and other actions in an attempt to steer things one way or another.
3. PIs, in large part, set the stage of programmatic balance by what they write up and actually submit (and by what they don't submit).
4. This is refined by the above-mentioned mail and panel review that prioritize these submissions.
5. Finally, NSF program directors have much independence in applying their biases and prejudices in making funding recommendations to NSF managers.

Of these, numbers 1, 3, and 4 are far and away the most significant in defining balance. Each is heavily dependent on research-community or peer input. NSF management moves money around with the advice of Advisory Committees made up of a group of active scientific peers. The community defines the balance of a program by their submissions; it is hard to fund proposals that the community doesn't submit! The peer review system itself, in the form of mail reviewers (chosen for specific aspects of specific proposals) and panelists (chosen for program overview and comparisons among proposals) provides yet another form of community input.

The others factors (2 and 5) can be viewed as opportunities for bureaucratic meddling with the wishes of the research community, but at different levels and scales. NSF management and the National Science Board identify problems that are of political and scientific concern and organize responses. Programs to stimulate research competitiveness in various groups (some states, women and minorities, education in various forms etc.) are examples.

At the other end of the NSF system, the program directors can and do apply their own spin to the final decision package. "Program balance" can be the basis of a recommendation to fund (or not) that departs from the order set by peer review. When program directors exercise this, they must convince their supervisors of the wisdom of this decision. Division Directors, in turn, must agree to all recommendations from program directors. Finally, the decisions of each program are reviewed by a "committee of visitors" every three years. These are also members of the outside research community, and they are expected to examine and comment on program balance in their report of NSF management.

The Tectonics Program firmly believes that priorities and program balance should be set by peer review and input from the research community. Our discretionary input is applied primarily within the infamous "gray zone," that is, within that group of less competitive proposals, some of which will be fundable within our budget levels. Within this group, we prioritize based on our perception of overall significance, practicability, and cost effectiveness. Our final priority assignments will resemble, but not match either the averaged mail review score or the panel ranking list. However, it is very unusual for a project recommended for funding to be in the funding range of neither the panel or the mail ranking. Finally, we foster new initiatives, such as Active Tectonics, with the hope of stimulating new avenues for research projects.
Tom Wright, Tectonics Division Program Director. fax: 703-306-0382; twright@nsf.gov

Active Tectonics Awards for January 1, 1997 and July 1, 1997

AWARD	PI	INSTITUTION	TITLE
9614759	Allmendinger	Cornell University- Endowed	COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH: Characterizing Continental Deformation in the Andean Foreland at Multiple Timescales Using GPS Geodesy and the Geologic Record
9615393	Bevis	U of Hawaii Manoa	COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH: Characterizing Continental Deformation in the Andean Foreland at Multiple Timescales Using GPS Geodesy and the Geologic Record
9705841	Brown	U of Minnesota-Twin Cities	COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH: To Determine the Rate of Slip and Total Offset on the Karakorum Fault of Western Tibet
9706294	Burbank	PA St U University Park	"Spatial and Temporal Distribution of Quaternary Fold Growth and Faulting in a Transpressional Regime, New Zealand "
9614567	Humphreys	U of Oregon Eugene	Collaborative Research: Dynamics and Kinematics of North America-Juan De Fuca- Pacific Plate Interaction: Constraints from GPS Geodesy and Geophysical Modeling
9706502	Molnar	MIT	COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH: To Determine the Rate of Slip on the Karakorum Fault of Western Tibet
9614675	Mueller	U of Colorado Boulder	3D Structural Growth and Tectonic Geomorphology of Active Fault-Bend Folds
9705620	Pinter	Southern Ill U Carbondale	"COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH: Testing Models of Fault- Related Folding, Northern Channel Islands, California "
9614600	Qamar	U of Washington	Collaborative Research: Dynamics and Kinematics of North America-Juan de Fuca-Pacific Plate Interaction: Constraints from GPS Geodesy and Geophysical Modeling
9707604	Ribe	Yale University	Collaborative Research: The Dynamics of Plume-Ridge Interaction
9614877	Shen	U of Cal Los Angeles	GPS Studies in Northern China II
9707193	Silver	Carnegie Inst of Wash	Collaborative Research: The Dynamics of Plume Ridge Interaction
9614651	Smalley	University of Memphis	COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH: Characterizing Continental Deformation in the Andean Foreland at Multiple Timescales Using GPS Geodesy and the Geologic Record
9706258	Sorlien	U of Cal Santa Barbara	"COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH: Testing Models of Fault- Related Folding, Northern Channel Islands, California "

Tectonics Awards for January 1, 1997 and July 1, 1997

AWARD	PI	INSTITUTION	TITLE
9706445	Bauer	U of Missouri Columbia	COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH: Middle-Crustal Deformation and Metamorphism of an Archean Continental Margin during Early Proterozoic Orogensis
9706269	Burbank	PA St U University Park	Three-Dimensional Reconstruction and Rates of Actual Fold Growth and Fold Propagations in Near-Surface Conditions
9706193	Butler	U of Arizona	"Vertical-Axis Rotations during Tectonic Development of the Central Andes in Bolivia, Southeastern Peru, and Northwestern Argentina"
9706296	Chamberlain	University of Wyoming	COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH: Middle-Crustal Deformation and Metamorphism of the Margin of the Archean Wyoming Province during Early Proterozoic Orogensis
9705758	Condie	NM Inst of Mining & Tech	COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH: Geochronologic and Geologic Framework of Western Amazonia and its Bearing on Possible Reconstructions with Laurentia-Baltica
9614391	Gurnis	California Inst of Tech	Initiation of Subduction: Dynamics and Observational Constraints from Sedimentary Basins
9706798	Harper	SUNY Albany	The Coast Range Ophiolite in Southwestern Oregon and Comparison to the Josephine Ophiolite: New Constraints for the Mesozoic Evolution of the North American Continental...
9614869	Harrison	U of Cal Los Angeles	The Lateral Extent and Tectonic Significance of Late Miocene/Pliocene Inverted Metamorphism in the Himalaya
9706216	Hodges	MIT	Relationship Between E-W Extension and N-S Shortening in the Himalayas and Tibet
9614726	Isachsen	U of Arizona	"Age, Provenance and Tectonic Setting of the Proterozoic Pinal Schist Terrane, Southwestern U.S."
9706255	Louie	U of Nevada Reno	"Geophysical Test of Low-Angle Dip on the Seismogenic Dixie Valley Fault, Nevada"
9614582	Marrett	U of Texas Austin	"Three-Dimensional Kinematics of Fold-Thrust Belt Salients at Two Scales : Sierra Madre Oriental, Mexico"
9705726	Marshak	U of Ill Urbana- Champaign	"Support for a Penrose Conference on Continental-Interior Tectonics, Sept. 23-28, 1997"
9614722	McClelland	U of Cal Santa Barbara	"COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH: Age, Origin and Emplacement History of the Precordillera Ophiolite, Western Argentina: Constraints on the Tectonic Significance of the Laurentia..."
9705773	McDowell	U of Texas Austin	"Radiogenic Isotope Characteristics of Late Cretaceous and Tertiary Igneous Rocks Across the Southern Margin of the North American Craton, Northern Sierra Madre Occidental, MX."
9705701	Means	SUNY Albany	Experimental Fibrous Veins
9614758	Miller	San Jose State Univ Fdn	RUI - COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH: The Significance of Mineral Lineations in Ductilely Deformed Rocks
9706646	Moore	U of Cal Santa Cruz	Faults and Subsurface Fluid Flow: Fundamentals and Applications to Hydrogeology and Petroleum Geology: Conference Travel Support

9614682	Paterson	U of Southern California	"Investigation of Arc Processes: Relationships Between Orogeny, Mountain Building, and the Role of Crustal Anisotropy in the Peninsular Ranges Batholith, Baja California"
9706748	Pazzaglia	University of New Mexico	"COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH: Fluvial Terraces as a Record of Long-Term Deformation of the Cascadia Forearc Olympic Mountains, Washington State"
9614826	Roeske	U of Cal Davis	"COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH: Age, Origin and Emplacement History of the Precordillera Ophiolite, Western Argentina: Constraints on the Tectonic Significance of the Laurentia..."
9614620	Samson	Syracuse University	Origin and Evolution of the Cadomia Terrane: Systematic Characterization of Basement
9706475	Scholz	Columbia University	"Fault Interaction, Segmentation, and Coalescence"
9614674	Stock	California Inst of Tech	Reassessment of Geological Tie Points Across the Gulf of California
9706735	Thomas	U of Kentucky Res Fdn	The Argentine Precordillera: When and How was it Transferred from Laurentia to Gondwana?
9404697	Tobisch	U of Cal Santa Cruz	"Elongate Plutons in a Large-Volume Magmatic Arc, Central Sierra Nevada, California: Do they Represent Dike-Fed Chambers?"
9614407	van der Pluijm	University of Michigan	Clay Fabrics in Fault Gouge
9614473	Van Schmus	U of Kansas Ctr for Res In	Late Proterozoic Tectonic Development of Northeastern Brazil
9705759	Van Schmus	U of Kansas Ctr for Res In	COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH: Geochronologic and Geologic Framework of Western Amazonia and Its Bearing on Possible Reconstruction with Laurentia-Baltica
9614780	Wernicke	California Inst of Tech	"Studies of Large-Magnitude Intracontinental Extensional Tectonism in the Basin and Range, California and Nevada"
9614664	Yin	U of Cal Los Angeles	"When did Extrusion of the Tibetan Plateau Initiate and How much has Occurred? Geological Investigation of the Western Kunlun Shan, Western China"

Tom Wright, Tectonics Division Program Director. fax: 703-306-0382; twright@nsf.gov

And now on to business ... . Have you heard of the fine crop of newly filled academic positions across the U.S.? The list of new hires is encouraging. Working from geographic west to east, Bernie Housen has been appointed Asst. Prof. (geophysics) at Western Washington U., filling a position vacated by the retirement of Myrl Beck (who will stay on as an emeritus prof). Housen, a '94 Ph.D. of Ben van der Pluijm at Michigan and a post-doc with Subir Banerjee in the Institute for Rock Magnetism at Minnesota, starts his new position in the fall. Also from the Pacific Northwest comes word that Andrew Meigs, a recent USoCal Ph.D. under Doug Burbank and currently at Cal Tech working with Joann Stock and Kerry Sieh, will start an assistant prof'ship in active tectonics at Oregon State a year from this fall. Brendan McNulty, a 1994 Othmar Tobisch Ph.D. at UC Santa Cruz, will finish his 3 year postdoc at UCSC and become an Asst. Prof. (structure) at California State University at Dominguez Hills. He plans to continue working in the Cordillera Blanca, Peru. Two new hires inIdaho to tell you about: Joe Kruger will be leaving the Kansas Geological Survey for a tenure-track position in geophysics at Idaho State University; and Bill McClelland, a former student of George Gehrels at Arizona, leaves a geochronology research post at UC Santa Barbara to join the University of Idaho as a tenure-track economic/exploration geologist. Elsewhere in the Cordillera, Jim Faulds has been lured by the siren call of the Old West away from Iowa and off to the University of Nevada, Reno, where he will assume a tenure-track research position with the Nevada Bureau of Mines and Geology in September. New Mexico Tech's Earth and Environmental Sciences Department has a new Asst. Prof. in Harold Tobin (1995 Ph.D. UC Santa Cruz, Casey Moore, advisor). Harold has recently completed a two-year postdoc at Stanford in the Geophysics Department. On the other side of the Great Basin, Rick Livaccari has accepted a tenure-track position at Mesa State College in Grand Junction, Colorado.

Good news as well from the "mid-West" (which from a Pacific margin point of view seems more like the "near-East"). Randal Cox has taken a tenure-track position at Arkansas State University at Jonesboro after a stint at the Center for Earthquake Studies in Memphis. At the University of Arkansas in Little Rock, Jeff Connelly was first promoted to associate prof with tenure and then promptly named department head! Whew! -- talk about mixed blessings! Joining fellow Tennessee graduate Connelly (whose advisers were Nick Woodward and Bob Hatcher) in the "near-East" will be Kevin Smart, a Bill Dunne student (Ph.D., '96). Kevin started a tenure- track assistant prof'ship at the University of Oklahoma in August. Mike Hudec is changing Texas zip codes. Mike will be leaving Houston and EPR to assume a faculty position at Baylor University in Waco, where he will replace retiring Bill Brown.

There's tectonic activity in Michigan! Carolina Lithgow-Bertelloni is a new assistant prof member of the Tectonophysics Group at the University of Michigan, and Matthew Nyman will be a visiting assistant prof in tectonics there for the '97-'98 academic year. Leaving Michigan is recent Ph.D. Teri Boundy, who worked with Eric Essene and Alex Haliday in Norway. She is heading for a position at Ball State U., in Muncie, Indiana. And finally, on to the East Coast (the "far- East"), from which comes the news that John Shaw, a former student of John Suppe, is leaving Texaco EPTD in Houston and taking an assistant professorship in structural geology at Harvard. Hope we haven't missed anyone. If so, please let us know ...

Post-doctoral appointments continue to further the education of some recent graduates and often act as a gateway for later academic hiring. Alice Post, a Jan Tullis student at Brown, finished her degree in August and left for the University of Aachen in Germany to work with Janor Urai. Joining her in Europe will be Elizabeth Nagy, who has a Chateaubriand Fellowship for post-doc work in the Laboratoire de Geochronologie of the University of Paris 7; Elizabeth studied with Joann Stock at Cal Tech. David Goldsby, who completed a Ph.D. with Dave Kohlstedt in '96, is a post doc in Terry Tullis' rock friction lab at Brown. Tim Paulsen, a former winner of our Division's student research award, has completed his Ph.D. at Illinois under Steve Marshak, and is currently a post-doctoral scientist at the Byrd Polar Research Center at Ohio State. Peter Eichhubl, who is just finishing his Ph. D. under James Boles at UCSB will start a one-year postdoc position in September at the Stanford Rock Fracture Project. Peter is going to work on hydrocarbon migration in the Monterey Formation, California. Last, but definitely not least, Lisa Koenig is departing from Stanford University's Quantitative Structural Geology and Geomechanics Program with her Ph.D. (Atilla Aydin and Dave Pollard, advisors) to join Jon Fink at Arizona State University as a postdoc this fall.

People-type news: George Viele, emeritus prof at Missouri (Columbia), is off to Greece for two years where he'll conduct structural studies near Ancient Corinth in Peloponnesus. If you want to find him, ask at the American school there. Need an assistant George? Bob Yeats is soon to be, or is already, another active emeritus professor. He remains on the Oregon State faculty, retired from teaching, but not research. Bob has recently joined with Eldon Gath, Kerry Sieh, and Tom Rockwell to form a new consulting firm, Earth Consultants International. Steve Reynolds has been promoted to full prof at Arizona State and was the first-ever "Teacher of the Month" on ASU's website. Speaking of promotions, Vicki Hansen recently was promoted to full prof at SMU as well. Former Division chairperson Art Snoke received the University of Wyoming' Presidential Award for 1997 at Spring commencement ceremonies; it is the premier award for a faculty member at Wyoming and comes with an honorarium. Way to go Art! Amotz Agnon of the Hebrew University will spend one year as a visiting professor at the Stanford Rock Fracture Project starting August, 1997.

George Davis reports on an unusual convergence of attention on the geologic structure of southern Utah. In June, he was field trip leader for an AAPG research conference convened by Bill Higgs and Chuck Kluth (Chevron) out of Bryce Canyon. In September, he was again a field trip leader, this time out of Cedar Breaks, for the GSA Penrose Conference on "Tectonics of Continental Interiors", convened by Steve Marshak, Ben van derPluijm, and Mike Hamburger. At the GSA meeting in Salt Lake in October, southern Utah will be featured in one of the "Hot Topics" sessions. What makes it "hot" is the reaction to Clinton's designation of the Grand Staircase-Escalante region as a national monument.

News from up north primarily concerns honors to two of our Canadian colleagues. Eric Mountjoy of McGill University received the 1997 Logan Medal at the annual GAC-MAC meeting in May in Ottawa. The Logan Medal is the highest award bestowed by the Geological Association of Canada and was given to Mountjoy "for exceptional and diverse career contributions to our knowledge of the geology and tectonics of Canada and of carbonate rocks and their application to the petroleum industry." At the same Ottawa meeting, Paul Williams of the University of New Brunswick was elected as a Distinguished Fellow of the GAC. His citation read, in part, "Paul Williams is known internationally for his contributions to microstructural analysis and the geological mapping of complexly deformed terranes. He is widely respected as author of a number of benchmark papers in structural geology and co-author of one of the most influential structural geology textbooks ever written. ... Under his influence, more Canadian geologists are making the connection between microstructures and macrostructures and solving increasingly complex structural problems." This years GAC Structural Geology and Tectonics Division best student abstract was by Dan Gibson of Carleton University for his abstract: "Thermo-tectonic modeling for the Northern Monashee Complex, southeastern Canadian Cordillera"; $150 cash award accompanies this recognition. The website for our sister division is: http://craton.geol.brocku.ca/ctg.html. Alexander (Sandy) Cruden is the current chair of the division (cruden@credit.erin.utoronto.ca).

On a personal note, many of you have heard of the passing in January of Stanford emeritus professor Ben Page, our Division's Career Contribution awardee in 1993. His professional accomplishments, so nicely documented by Darrel Cowan, were published in "GSA Today" in early 1994, and won't be encapsulated here. I've always thought of Ben as my structural geology "father", since it was he who taught my first course in structure more decades ago than I'd readily admit. I can still remember his soft-spoken shyness in class, his frequent self- effacing comments that he didn't really know much about the particular topic he was discussing. Except, as I looked back on my notes from his class a score of years later I realized just how wrong he was, and how much his students had learned from him. He was certainly not a dynamic lecturer, but his love of structural geology and his warmth and his gentleness as a human being demanded that we pay attention to what he had to say. Our science seems to breed many nice people. Ben was high on anyone's list who knew him. He was at the top of mine ... and I am far from alone in that view. GD

AAPG Structure Short Course

Kevin Corbett (Anschutz Overseas Corp.) and Bob Ratliff (Cogniseis Development) are teaching a three day short course for AAPG entitled "Workstation Interpretation of Structural Styles", October 1-3, 1997 in Houston, TX. The course is designed to promote the use of 3D visualization tools and balancing/restoration software when interpreting both 2D and 3D seismic data. Participants will work with seismic interpretation and visualization software from Landmark and Geoquest, as well as verifying their interpretations using Geosec3D and Move-On-Fault restoration software. Datasets used in the course include a 3D survey over Badger Basin field from the Wyoming foreland, a 2D dataset from the Ewing Bank area in the Gulf of Mexico, a 2D dataset from the Ouachita thrust system in Oklahoma, and a 3D dataset from the Natuna Sea, Indonesia.

Division members may be interested in some of the following special sessions and field trips to be held during the 1998 Geological Association of Canada Meeting (contact persons are given for each event):

* Magnetic fabrics: fabrics and strain studies in rocks and sediments (organizer: Keith Benn; kbenn@acadvml.uottawa.ca)
* External domains in orogenic belts with emphasis on cross-sections and palinspastic restorations (organizers: Donna Kirkwood; dkirkwoo@ggl.ulaval.ca; and Daniel Lebel; dlebel@gsc.nrcan.gc.ca)
* Silurian deformation and metamorphism in the Northern Appalachians (organizers: Alain Tremblay; tremblay@gsc.nrcan.gc.ca; and Michel Malo; malo@gsc.nrcan.gc.ca)
* Mesoproterozoic plutonism in Grenvillian terranes: diversity and tectonic setting (organizers: Leopold Nadeau; nadeau@gsc.nrcan.gc.ca; and Louise Corriveau; corriveau@gsc.nrcan.gc.ca)
* Field trip: Nappes and melanges in the Quebec City area: their regional tectonic and stratigraphic significance in the Humber Zone (leaders: Danel Lebel and Donna Kirkwood -- see email addresses above)
* Field trip: Tectonic evolution of the south-central Grenville province, Portneuf-Mauricie region: from ca 1.4 GA arc-magmatism to late-Grenvillian extension (leaders: Leopold Nadeau; email address above; Pierre Brouillette and Claude Hebert)
* Field trip: Structural transect across the southern Quebec Appalachians (leaders: Alain Tremblay; email address above; and Sebastien Castonquay)
* Field trip: Saguenay area (Grenville Province): a wide range of tectonic and plutonic events from Mesoproterozoic to lower Cambrian (leaders: Claude Hebert; sgq@mrn.gouv.qc.ca; E. H. Chown and real Daignault)

Geological Society of Australia

SPECIALIST GROUP FOR TECTONICS AND STRUCTURAL GEOLOGY
presents

"the last conference of the millennium"

to be held at
Halls Gap, Victoria
in the heart of the Grampians mountain range

February 15 - 19, 1999

The meeting will follow the usual format of the Specialist Group for Tectonics and Structural Geology, with a widerange of topics covered, and several invited papers on special review topics. This is the last SGTSG conference for this millennium, so we will encourage presentation of a number of exciting review topics, to take our discipline into the 21st Century. Further information can be obtained from members of the Organizing Committee:

Gordon Lister gordon@earth.monash.edu.au
Patrice Rey prey@earth.monash.edu.au
Mark Jessell mark@earth.monash.edu.au
Mike Hall mhall@earth.monash.edu.au
ChrisWilson chris_wilson@
muwayf.unimelb.edu.au
Paul O'Sullivan pos@mojave.latrobe.edu.au
Caroline Venn cstreets@earth.monash.edu.au

Expressions of interest and/or advance notice of contributions should be sent to:

Sarah Vaughan (sarah@earth.monash.edu.au)

Registration will soon be available via internet on the SGTSG website: http://artemis.earth.monash.edu.au/sgtsg/home.html

The Colorado Scientific Society announces the availability of research grants for M.S and Ph.D. earth science students involved in field-oriented studies in Colorado and the Rocky Mountain region or who undertake topical or field research in engineering geology. Approximately eight grants will be awarded in the $500-$1000 range, and one grant is available for an engineering geology thesis or dissertation with no geographic specifivity. Policies, procedures for grant applications and awards, and the application deadline (usually in April) can be obtained from: The Chairman, Memorial Research Funds, Colorado Scientific Society, P. O. Box. 150495, Lakewood, CO 80215- 0495.

Information on Valley Fever can be found at http://www.arl.arizona.edu/vfce or (520) 629-4777.

Caribbean geology site on the Web

Gren Draper announces that he has begun a Caribbean website at: http://www.fiu.edu/orgs/caribgeol. The site is devoted to all aspects of the earth sciences in the Caribbean region including (of course) structural geology and tectonics. Gren's email address is: DRAPER@servms.fiu.edu.

Structure Photo CD Interest?

Mark Fischer, Northern Illinois University, is still interested in developing a series of Photo CD's of "classic" geologic structures. Interested in contributing? Contact Mark at 815-753-7939 or fischer@geol.niu.edu.

Future of the Active Tectonics program

Tom Wright's report in the March, 1997, issue of the Structural Geology and Tectonics Division Newsletter asks for comment on issues affecting the Tectonics Program at NSF. He notes that the budget for the Active Tectonics (AT) Special Emphasis Area is about $1.2 million, flat from last year, and about an order of magnitude lower than anticipated by the AT Planning Committee on which I served.

Tom runs up a warning flag for the rest of us when he points out that the AT Initiative must "endure a critical assessment." He pointedly spells the Active Tectonics program with a small "p" to point out the built-in differences with older, established programs with a capital "P" with which Active Tectonics must compete. In these warnings, Tom confirms the scuttlebutt circulated by anxious scientists in the hallways of recent national meetings: that AT might be in trouble with senior management at NSF.

In the same issue of the Newsletter, there appeared an essay by Dave Pollard and Atilla Aydin that suggested, among other things, that there is not a level playing field at NSF. Although their essay was not directed toward AT, I explore their line of reasoning as it applies to AT.

Speaking for myself, I thought that I was participating in a planning meeting that would result in a program that was supposed to address an array of multidisciplinary problems that confront our Nation and also pose first-order problems about how tectonics works in real time, using new technologies. I doubt that I would have devoted as much time as I did if I had known that this program would have as its disposal only a little more than a million dollars a year. Because of the magnitude of the problems to be addressed, I proposed at the planning meeting that AT involve all Federal agencies with a major involvement in AT research, including USGS within the NEHRP program and NOAA and NASA outside that program. This did not happen, and the entire program ended up at NSF. Now it appears that a beautifully-formulated national program is in danger of foundering based on the priorities established by a single Federal agency.

Tom states that the small amount of money found for AT was made available as a result of a "tax" on established Programs (with a capital "P") and, no doubt, those Programs would like to get that money back. And yet existing Programs within NSF such as ODP and Marine Geology and Geophysics have not established a high priority for research related to AT, even though NSF is a NEHRP agency. Tom says that the priorities are dictated by the community through the peer-review system, but speaking only for myself, I have never been asked to review a proposal for ODP or Marine Geology and Geophysics, despite the fact that I am an adjunct member of the Oceanography faculty at OSU and have spent more than six months at sea on NSF-funded cruises. On the other hand, I get many proposals from the Tectonics program sensu stricto, sometimes the same proposal in more than one iteration. For this reason, Dave and Atilla's suggestion rings true that the judgments of the peer reviewers is in part related to the reviewers selected by the Program Director.

When I saw that AT was going to be officially retained by NSF alone, I assumed that NSF did so to take advantage of the obvious benefits to society that the AT program offers. In a time when research funds are beingraided to balance the federal budget, NSF and all other Federal agencies must make an ever stronger case to Congress for relevance of their R&D programs in order to maintain their share of the pie, or even using AT to obtain a real dollar increase from Congress. Apparently, NSF has not taken advantage of this opportunity.

I am hoping that Tom's call for input from the community will lead to a strong response, and thereby to more fundamental changes at NSF, including reappraisal of those programs with a capital P with which AT must compete on a sloping playing field. Read again the text of the Initiative put together by George Davis and his committee (Active Tectonics and Society: A Plan for Integrative Science), and if you agree, sound off! If change at NSF is not an option, then I urge that AT be broadened to include other agencies where AT research may be of higher priority.

Bob Yeats, Dept. of Geosciences, OSU, Corvallis, OR 97331

Comment: NSF Tectonics Program - Is it Properly Balanced?

The discussion initiated by Pollard, Aydin, Wright, and Wintsch is extremely timely as many geological disciplines are currently re-evaluating their priorities in the light of changing funding and employment patterns. Pollard and Aydin raise some important issues which deserve closer examination by all members of our scientific community. Promoting discussions of this type is one of the most valuable functions of the S&T newsletter and, with that in mind, I will dive into the fray! There are really two issues raised by Pollard and Aydin: (1) the balance of field vs. experimental/theoretical (E/T) work, and (2) the balance of curiosity-driven vs. strategic research. Though related in some ways, these two are separate issues that have no one-to-one correspondence.

There is a symbiotic relationship between observation and E/T work. Because we seek to understand the real world, any motivation for E/T work must necessarily come from observations of the real world. Furthermore, the ultimate test of E/T analyses must be real world observations, newly refined and focused by insight that E/T work has given us. These observations may be field-based or remotely sensed, but they must be focused on how the Earth actually behaves, not how we would like it to behave in our laboratories or computers. It is equally true, however, that commonly we cannot comprehend what we observe without breaking it down, via E/T approaches, into simplified physical and chemical components for analysis. The best studies have components of both, as Pollard and Aydin state at one place in their original comment, but it is not always easy to tell from the titles.

Pollard and Aydin do not specify how they determined their proportions of field vs. E/T awards, but I suspect that it was done on the basis of titles of funded proposals. If so that raises the question, "can you tell a book by its cover? " Consider the titles of two works on the laccoliths of the Henry Mountains, Utah: G. K. Gilbert's (1877) "Report on the Geology of the Henry Mountains", and D. Pollard's (1968) dissertation "Deformation of host rocks during sill and laccolith formation". Both works contributed fundamental observations and theoretical analyses to understanding of laccolith emplacement. But if one were to classify them, based on their titles alone and not knowing the authors, I suspect they would have been relegated to the "field" bin! Who could tell, based on the title of one of my NSF proposals "Neotectonics of a non-collisional continental plateau: The Altiplano-Puna", that this grant (and others of similar title) would have sponsored not only regional field observations in NW Argentina, but also the development of infinitesimal and finite strain based methods of fault analysis, as well as the seeds of subsequent work on the fractal scaling relations of fault populations? This last topic, initially motivated by curiosity, has considerable import for just some of the strategic applications that Pollard and Aydin mention. I maintain that it is not always so easy to tell where work of a particular title will lead!

Despite these quibbles with methodology, Pollard and Aydin are clearly correct that modern structural geologists must obtain a quantitative mechanical background, not only to be competitive in today's job markets but because it results in the best science. However, studies which are based solely in theory are just as deficient, perhaps more so, than studies based only in field observation. Good observations alone may not produce great insight but they are, by themselves, harmless (except to the extent that they consume limited resources); good theoretical analysis based on flawed or misinterpreted observations can be misleading at best. To the extent that exploration and discovery remain important in our discipline, there will always be a place for field work.

From a strategic view point, the ability to make good field observations is more important than ever. With the recent upturn of the petroleum industry, recruiters returning to campus are surprised and shocked at the changes in basic geology curriculum, the emphasis shifting away from classical field-based disciplines. Even in environmental fields, excellence in basic observation is critically important. Most recruiters tell us that they want people with field experience. Yet the venues for obtaining field training are increasingly limited. However, this does not mean that E/T work is unimportant. Clearly, a student possessing "quantitative orientations with strong computer skills" and field experience will have better job prospects than one with field experience alone.

In summary, I suggest that the debate should not be focused on the question of who gets a bigger cut of a very small pie. Simply evening the parity between funded proposals with theoretical and field-based titles will not insure that the best science is done. Instead, we must critically examine how to insure that field, experiment, and theory are integrated in our educational and funding apparatuses so that the best Earth Scientists are produced in order to tackle increasingly complex problems.

I appreciate the comments made by David Pollard, Scott Wilkerson, and Greg Davis on an earlier draft of this note, although they may not agree with all of the thoughts expressed here.

Rick Allmendinger; allmendin@geology.cornell.edu, Dept. of Geological Sciences, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853-1504

Comment: NSF Tectonics Program - Is it Properly Balanced?

Dave Pollard and Atilla Aydin raised several interesting points in their note (March, 1997, Newsletter issue) about funding from the NSF Tectonics Program. I would like to make a brief comment about their first point, that the Tectonics Program funds many more "primarily field based" projects (80% of those funded from July,1994 to July, 1996) than it does 'primarily experiment/theory based' projects (20% of those funded during the same time frame), and that this contrast reflects a "skewness favoring field and regional studies". In essence, Dave and Atilla argue that the Tectonics Program may be biased in terms of what types of proposals it chooses to fund, and that this bias may not be a good thing for the fields of structural geology and tectonics. It is not my purpose here to dispute the concept that we need to engage in both experimental/theory-based studies as well as field-based studies in order to move forward in our understanding of structural geology and tectonics. Rather, my purpose is simply to point out how the use of statistics can lead to conclusions that are not necessarily valid.

Specifically, the percentage of proposals funded to work on a particular type of study (as opposed to other types of study) is presumably strongly linked to the percentage of proposals submitted to work on this type of study, and this factor must be taken into account before any conclusions can be drawn about the significance of variations in funding success rates for different

types of studies. In other words, if a large number of proposals are submitted on one type of study and few on another type, then it is very likely that a greater number of proposals on the first type of study will be funded, without this indicating any sort of bias.

Is there any reason to believe that this factor is relevant in the structure/tectonics field? I cannot claim to cite any hard statistics on the following (and would be happy to stand corrected if I am wrong), but it is my impression that the great majority of academic geologists whose area of expertise is structural geology/tectonics engage, to a significant extent, in field-based studies. Those whose primary focus is experimental or theory-based analysis are, to my knowledge, much fewer in total numbers. Thus it would be my guess that many fewer proposal are submitted on "primarily experiment/theory based" projects than are submitted on 'primarily field based' projects -- it would not surprise me if the ratio in terms of submittal was about 20:80. Thus, in order to begin to evaluate whether there is any bias or skewness in the Tectonics Program funding process, it would be necessary to look at the number of proposals that are funded versus the number that are submitted on experiment/theory-based projects and then compare this ratio with the proportion of proposals funded-versus-submitted on field-based projects. I'm guessing that the funding success rate, when looked at this way, is probably nearly the same for both topics. Perhaps Tom Wright or Bob Wintsch could offer additional insight on this.

Sandra J. Wyld, Department of Geology, University of Georgia, Athens, GA, 30602; swyld@gly.uga.edu

Use of "Rotated"

It seems to have become popular to use "rotated" in place of "tilted" to describe tilted fault blocks in extended areas. This obfuscatory usage should be avoided. "Rotated" does not carry information about the orientation of the axis of rotation, so the reader may have to ponder the meaning and perhaps guess the orientation of the axis of rotation. Tilted means "rotated about a horizontal axis," which seems to be what many authors mean where they use "rotated." Use of "rotated" in place of "tilted" is perhaps a new member of the family of "little pomposities" mentioned by Art Sylvester and John Costa in a comment in the July, 1990 issue of GSA Bulletin. This family includes the irritating "subsequent to" in place of "after."

Jon Spencer, Dept. of Geosciences, Univ. of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721; jspencer@geo.Arizona.EDU

Sue Treagus would like to give notice that she will be stepping down as Chief Editor of the Journal of Structural Geology, at the end of this year. After 12 years as Chief, and 17 altogether as a JSG editor, she considers that this is the right time for a change at the helm, both personally and for the Journal. Sue is delighted to announce that Jim Evans (Utah State University) has agreed to be the new Chief Editor, from January 1998. While the location of the office will change from Manchester, England, to Logan, Utah, the objectives and editorial policies of the Journal will remain the same. Sue and Jim will work together to ensure a smooth transfer of duties, with the minimum of disruption to authors and to JSG production. (More information in JSG: see Editorial in August issue, Vol 19 No 8.)

To mark this milestone, JSG/Elsevier have agreed to sponsor some "liquid refreshment" at the Division's Cocktail Party at Salt Lake City. Sue, Jim, and several of the Associate Editors, aim to be there to talk to members of the Division about authors' and readers' opinions of the Journal and how it can best fulfil the needs of the community in the years to come. This also will provide an opportunity for warm thanks to Peter Hudleston (U of Minnesota), as he steps down after an incredible 14 years as a JSG editor, and to introduce Don Fisher (Penn State) to the new editorial team.

Sue Treagus, Department of Earth Sciences, University of Manchester, Manchester M13 9PL, U.K.; s.treagus@man.ac.uk

Structural Geology & Computers Table of Contents

When Greg and Scott asked me to write something on web-related matters, I wondered what to do. Aside from your garden variety excuses to say no (did not get message in time, too busy, Tom Wright wants a review, the rocks are eroding), writings about Internet resources and Web tricks can be found most anywhere these days. I could offer a personal perspective, and, surprisingly, the editors said go (in fact, it sounded like "Go blue"). It has been 40 years since Kerouac's "On the Road" inspired a generation, so why not the "InfoRoad" for today's generation. Warning: if you hate anecdotal write-ups, do not read on!

When I arrived at Michigan about a dozen years ago (time flies), I was tickled pink with my first PC. A Leading Edge 8086, Hercules monochrome display, dual-diskette (those big floppy ones), and 512K memory. Matters evolved rapidly from there; adding math processors, color monitors (some may remember the evolution from CGA to VGA, and those incompatible graphics cards), ever bigger hard-drives and more powerful Intel processors. Beside the convenience of desktop typing and inconvenience of endless revisions, a truly big change occurred when email became a computer application. First it was mainly campus-wide, but the electronic mail umbrella widened when other campuses were linked. For me, email made the step from stand-alone computing to today's world-wide connectivity. Meanwhile, the university in its infinite wisdom decided to go Apple, which left some of us stranded with our PCs. I did not want to change platform, but I was on my own in as far as computer support was concerned. This became an irresistible challenge and a good motivation to get a better understanding of PCs and the Internet.

I do not recall exactly when, but I found out about some people at the University of Illinois who were working on an Internet interface. This interface was really for the Apple (Mac) platform, but some beta versions of Mosaic were offered for PC users. At least one of those guys later made a few bucks when he started Netscape. Meanwhile, the Microsoft people had also realized that graphical interfaces, initially developed by Xerox, were a lot easier than typing DOS commands. My UNIX friends (the "power-computing" platform) still disagree with this perspective, but anyhow. So, I also got into Windows when it was essentially useless and mainly slowed down your computer. Mosaic went through very buggy beta versions, all of which seemed to be particularly troublesome on my computer. But when Mosaic 1.0 appeared, things were reasonably stable. The University of Illinois also offered the gateway to internet resources (the Mosaic homepage), which were rapidly growing. Around that time FTP, Gopher and other resources became widely available. Gopher is pretty much gone these days, but FTP is alive and well. When Netscape was founded I started to use their browser. The major advantage was the way pages were loaded. Instead of waiting for the whole page to load at once, Netscape would first show any text and then add the images as they became available. Since I was using a modem (at first even a 300 bps!), this approach was a breakthrough and made internet surfing more than just an exercise in staring at blank screens. At the same time, Internet interfaces became a commercial enterprise, which made better and more powerful versions appear fast and furiously (in case you wonder, I did not buy stock).

Around Netscape 2.x I started to play with the built-in HTML editor, and make my own webpages. HTML text is not difficult as it has a limited set of commands, but having a what-you-see-is-what-you-get (WYSIWYG) editor make things a lot easier. My department had also reached the ethernet stage and, better yet, optical networks were in place in my lab area. Speed would no longer be a problem, I thought at the time. With the arrival of Netscape 3.x and Microsoft's realization that it would be marginalized without internet software, the full promise of world-wide connectivity became realized. It is now late 1995 and Windows95 had also arrived. Whereas my university was still not offering much PC support, most development elsewhere was taking place for the PC platform, largely stimulated by the success of Netscape's Navigator. New programs allowed internet chat, internet phoning, and, perhaps most amazingly, real-time video. I experimented (=played) a lot with a program called CuSeeMe, which was offered free of charge by Cornell University. Like so many schools, Cornell favored the Apple platform, but Windows-based versions were also available. I consider the ability to offer real-time video, or moving images in any form for that matter, through the internet is the next big step in personal computing and the internet.
Today, ease of use and access are the main goals of browsers. Although a die-hard fan of Netscape (4.x is called Communicator), I have to admit that I just loaded Microsoft's Explorer 4.0 (beta 2 at the time of writing). I hate to see one company control the market, but Explorer (not to be confused with Explorer by SG) attempts seamless integration of the internet and the local operating system (OS). In fact, Windows95 user who upgrade to Windows98 will automatically get Explorer as the browser and many of its applications/plug-ins. These applications are where modern browsers shine. Both Netscape and Microsoft offer pretty good editors. The streaming technology, which is available for audio and video removes those wasteful waits for life signs. A video clip starts running after a few moments, while loading the rest of the file. Moreover, clever little programs, mostly written in Java, give interactivity to webpages. Interactivity and the availability to include moving images mark the junction between the internet and the book as information providers (beside those Disney animated books, parents). More administrative types will find that internet applications can offer audio and simultaneous image editing, and even real-time video (but who needs that). Be careful, however, with the wave of `push' technology to get files and information. This technological marvel offers the latest version of a program by simply connection to the server of a vendor. The download and execution of files is prompted by the remote serve; you have to do nothing. This technology, however, may hide viruses that can creep into your computer if the software site is not well protected. Remember that a virus attacks when you run a program or a macro; just reading a message won't do anything. Automatic file updates present an irresistible challenge to hackers. Get a (free) digital ID and limit automatic updates.

If you read this far, you probably also read those emails and other info generously distributed by your information technology division. Universities and colleges seem to view the Internet as a new way to do business, both administrative and educational. Administrators find new means to process paperwork using interactive forms on intranets (a local internet is called an intranet). Unfortunately, giving your responses takes as much time as before, but form processing and handling require much less time. This probably means more questionnaires and forms on a webpage near you. The more attractive aspect of internet deals with education. There is simply an unprecedented amount of information available at our fingertips. Although much of it is repetitive and sometimes just garbage, there are lots and lots of innovative and stimulating resources. When I include the internet in my classes, the first assignment is to obtain information on a specific topic using a web search (such as Yahoo or AltaVista). Take "oceans" or "continents". A search gives thousands of sites and tens of thousands of `hits'. The first lesson is obvious. You have to narrow down what you are looking for if you want to find anything useful. A few cleverstudents use a newsgroup (in recent versions of Netscape and Explorer they are easy to access). In, say, sci.geo.geology, they can ask for help with the topic of their term paper. Anyhow, useful information is there, but getting it takes effort. Then I ask students to prepare their term paper in the form of a webpage. Aside from the well-known educational merit that researching a topic offers, they learn to publish on the web (including stuff like ftp) and end up quite comfortable with browsers. This generation of students seems to have little difficulty with the technology and actually enjoy the challenge. You show them once, and they usually take it from there. Soon they all have personal homepages.
Currently I am involved in trying to offer more complicated course material through the internet, such as interactive databases and complex images. For example, a real-time, rotating 3D image of earthquake distribution near the Tonga trench can be generated on a Silicon Graphics workstation, but to get the same interactivity through the internet poses bandwidth problems. It simply takes too long to access the database, crunch the numbers and transfer the newly generated image file. So we are looking into shortcuts to achieve the same visual effect of rotating images on demand (virtual images). Similarly, loading video clips that illustrate a geologic principle (a volcanic eruption, for example) take too long on increasingly clogged connections, so we are exploring ways to offer some material locally (using CD-ROM and `push' technology). By the time you read this, internet applications will undoubtedly have moved on to bigger and, maybe, better problems. This aspect alone makes the whole process so interesting. Too bad it takes so much time to learn about it.

Ben van der Pluijm, Univ. Mich., Ann Arbor, MI 48109; ph: 313-764-1435; vdpluijm@umich.edu.

In contrast with the easterly progression of deformation in the northern Laramide province, Steve Roberts showed that, in Colorado, deformation and basin initiation moved to the west away from the Front Range. Shari Kelley presented fission track data from the interior of the Front Range, showing how the partial annealing zone can be used to document the sense of throw on faults within crystalline basement. A two-stage tectonic model explaining the two cycles of sedimentation in the adjacent Denver Basin was described by Bob Raynolds.

The session ended with a vigorous debate on the mode of Laramide deformation in New Mexico, with stratigraphic evidence used to support (Steve Cather) and preclude (Lee Woodward) large amounts of strike-slip motion along the eastern margin of the Colorado Plateau. Initial fault analyses presented by Tim Wawrzyniec were inconclusive but suggest that these hypotheses can be readily tested. The divergent conclusions of the last talks show that the Laramide orogen still presents ample opportunities for detailed research addressing fundamental questions of intracratonic tectonics and sedimentation.

Eric Erslev, Department of Earth Resources, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO 80523
phone: (970) 491-6375; fax: (970) 221-2901
erslev@cnr.colostate.edu

[Notices of future events of interest to Division members are welcomed by the editors]

1997

Oct. 1-2: Paleomagnetism and diagenesis in sediments: London. Contact Don Tarling, Dept. of GeologicalSciences, Univ. of Plymouth, PL4 8AA, UK; fax: 01752 233117; email: D.Tarling@plymouth.ac.uk

Oct. 5-8: Seismological Society of America, Eastern Sect. Ann. Mtng.: Ottawa. Contact Gail Atkinson, Carleton Univ.; phone: (613) 520-2600, ext. 1399; email: esssa@ccs.carleton.ca; http://www.seismo.nrcan.gc.ca/esssa97


Oct. 16-19: Association for Women Geoscientists (convention): Snowbird, Utah. Contact Bea Mayes; email: nrugs.bmayes@email.state.ut.us

Oct. 20-23: Geological Society of America Ann. Mtng.: Salt Lake City. Contact Becky Martin; phone: (303) 447-2020, ext. 164; fax: (303) 447-1133.

Nov. 1-4: Vrancea earthquakes (international workshop): Bucharest. Contact: email: fwenzel@gpiwapl.physik.uni-karlsruhe.de, or: lungud@hidro.utcb.ro

Nov. 3-5: Tectonics of East Asia (international conference and Sino-American symposium): Chungli, Taiwan. Contact: C.-H. Lo, Dept. of Geology, National Taiwan Univ., Taipei, Taiwan; fax: 886 2 3636095; email: lo@suno3.gl.ntu.edu.tw; http://www.fermat.geol.uconn.edu/info/taiwan

Nov. 4-8: Asian conference on remote sensing: Colombo, Sri Lanka: Sponsor: Asian Assoc. of Remote Sensing; contact: fax: 81 3 3479 2762; email: chiwa@shunji.iis.u-tokyo.ac.jp

Nov. 11-15: Comparative evolution of PeriTethyan rift basins: Cairo, Egypt. Contact William Cavazza, Dept. Earth and Geoenvironmental Sciences, Univ. of Bologna, Bologna, Italy; fax: 39-51-243-336, email: cavazza@geomin.unibo.it

Nov. 17-19: Applied geologic remote sensing (12th international conference): Denver. Sponsor: ERIM and others. Contact: Robt. Rogers, ERIM, Box 134001, Ann Arbor, MI 48113-4001; phone: (313) 994-5123; email: raeder@erim.org.

Dec. 8-12: American Geophysical Union Fall Mtng.: San Francisco: (202) 462-6900.

1998

Jan. 25-29: Stable continental region earthquakes (Chapman Conference): Hyderabad, India. Contact: AGU Meetings Dept.; phone: (202) 462-6900; fax: (202) 328-0566; email: meetings@kosmos.agu.org: http://www.agu.org

Apr 18-20: Geological Association of Canada-Mineralogical Association of Canada Annl. Mtng.: Quebec City, Canada.

Mar 16-18: Seismological Society of America Ann. Mtng.: Boulder, CO. Sponsor: SSA; phone: (510) 525-5474; fax: (510) 525-7204; email: snewman@seismosoc.org

May 20-21: Response of the Earth's lithosphere to extension: London; sponsor: The Royal Society of London. Contact R. B. Whitmarsh, Challenger Seafloor Processes Division, Southampton Oceanography Centre, European Way, Southampton SO14 3ZH, UK; phone: +44-(0) 1703-596564; fax:+44-(0) 1703-596554; email: bob.whitmarsh@soc.soton.ac.uk

May 17-20: AAPG Ann. Mtng.: Salt Lake City. Phone: (918) 560-2679; fax (918) 560-2684.

May 21-Jun 4: 6th U.S. National Conference on Earthquake Engineering: Seattle, WA. Sponsors: Am. Soc. of Civil Engineers; Earthquake Engineering Research Cntr. Contact: E. Arscott, EERC, 499 14th St., suite 320, Oakland, CA 94612-1934; phone: (510) 451-0905; fax: (510) 451-5411; email: eeri@eeri.org. Abstract deadline has passed.

May 26-29: AGU Spring Meeting: Boston. Contact: email: meetings@kosmos.agu.org

Jun 28-Jul 3: The interior of the Earth: Henniker, N.H. Contact M. Gurnis, Seismology Lab, Caltech, Pasadena, CA 91125; phone: (818) 395-6979; fax: (818) 564-0715.

Jun 28-Jul 5: Gondwana 10: Event stratigraphy of Gondwana (international conference): Rondebosch, South Africa. Contact: Organizing committee - Gondwana 10, Dept. of Geological Sciences, Univ. of Cape Town, Rondebosch 7700, South Africa; fax: 27 21 650-3167; email: gondwana@geology.uct.ac.za; http://www.uct.ac.za/depts/cigc

Jul 21-25: Western Pacific Geophysics Meeting: Taipei, Taiwan. Contact AGU Meetings Dept., 2000 Florida Ave., Washington, DC 20009; phone: (202) 462-6900; fax: (202) 328-0566; email: meetinginfo@kosmos.agu.org

Aug. 17-20: 5th International Symposium on the Jurassic System: Vancouver, B. C. Contact: Paul L. Smith, Earth and Ocean Sciences, Univ. British Columbia, 6339 Stores Rd., Vancouver, V6T 1Z4; phone: (604) 822-6456; fax: (604) 822-6088; email: psmith@eos.ubc.ca; http://www.eos.ubc.ca/jurassic/announce.htm

Sept. 10-20: IGCP Project 367 final meeting and INQUA Shorelines and Neotectonics Commissions: Corinth and Samos, Greece. Contact: Stathis Stiros, Inst. of Geology and Mineral Exploration, 70 Mesoghion St., Athens 11527; fax: 30 1 775 2211; email: stiros@prometheus.hol.gr; or, Anton io Pirazzoli; email:pirazzol@cnrs-bellevue.fr

Editors' Note: We tried to canvas the GSA Program for items in the general subject areas of Structural Geology & Tectonics; we apologize in advance for any inadvertent omissions. See the June issue of GSA Today or the GSA web pages for add