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Advancing Geoscience Research through CIDER

Barbara Romanowicz, Dept. of Earth and Planetary Science, Univ. of California Berkeley, 301 McCone Hall, Berkeley, California
94720, USA; Marc Hirschmann, Dept. of Earth Sciences, Univ. of Minnesota, 310 Pillsbury Drive SE, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55455,
USA; Louise Kellogg, Dept. of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Univ. of California Davis, One Shields Ave., Davis, California 95616,
USA; Michael Manga, Dept. of Earth and Planetary Science, Univ. of California Berkeley, 301 McCone Hall, Berkeley, California
94720, USA; Sujoy Mukhopadhyay, Univ. of California Davis, Dept. of Earth and Planetary Sciences, One Shields Ave., Davis,
California 95616, USA; and Bruce Buffett, Dept. of Earth and Planetary Science, Univ. of California Berkeley, 301 McCone Hall,
Berkeley, California 94720, USA

With growing technical sophistication in presented at conferences and in publications “theme.” The lectures and hands-on exer-
the earth sciences and increasing specializa- less accessible to non-specialists. cises target the non-specialists in a particular
tion within its subdisciplines, geoscientists Appreciating the robustness but also the discipline and progressively build from
face an organizational problem when we uncertainties in a field other than one’s own basics toward current research questions and
want to tackle grand research challenges that presents a growing challenge. multidisciplinary challenges. All the lectures
span many disciplines. How do we bring the are recorded and posted publicly on the
various fields together to leverage their indi- In establishing its format, CIDER was CIDER wiki (see http://www.deep-earth.
vidual strengths and create something more initially inspired by the Kavli Institute for org/wiki_cider/CIDER_Lecture_
than the sum of the parts? This is the prob- Theoretical Physics (KITP) in Santa Collection). Lectures are designed so that
lem that CIDER (Cooperative Institute for Barbara, California, USA, which provides informal interruptions are encouraged, invit-
Dynamic Earth Research) attempts to solve. an immersive environment for informal ing questions that frequently lead to unex-
interactions among researchers in physics. pected discussions involving both students
CIDER is an institute “without walls” that KITP has a dedicated building, where each and senior participants. Cross-disciplinary
brings together experts from a wide range of visitor has office space and access to education across generations is a valued
disciplines with the goal of advancing research and information infrastructure. aspect of the summer program. Most senior
understanding on grand challenges that There are few formal activities, but interac- participants attend most of the lectures,
require a multidisciplinary approach and tions among participants are facilitated by which frequently results in stimulating dis-
engages geoscientists at all levels to look at the building layout, with many open areas cussions among several experts in the same
the entire Earth as a system. It has been for meetings equipped with blackboards and discipline. This open environment means
funded by the National Science Foundation chairs and abundant access to coffee and tea. that the lectures differ from conventional
(NSF) since 2003, most recently through the teaching environments, providing different
Frontiers in Earth Systems Dynamics Adapting this model to the specific needs points of view and a better sense of the chal-
(FESD) program. of the geoscience community, and specifi- lenges and state of knowledge in a given
cally to provide an intellectual framework discipline, and how the different disciplines
Why CIDER? Even though almost half a for integrated multidisciplinary research and complement each other. Assessments and
century has passed since the acceptance of education, was the work of a pioneering evaluations by participants are administered
the plate tectonics theory, many fundamen- group of enthusiasts, including Adam and collected by an independent team (see
tal components of Earth’s dynamic systems Dziewonski and Stan Hart, and evolved over http://www.deep-earth.org/wiki_cider/
remain poorly understood. Some examples several years by successive approximations CIDER_Program_Evaluations).
of questions that CIDER addresses include to its present steady state.
(a) connections between mantle convection As the tutorial session progresses, time is
and the forces that drive plate motions; CIDER activities are organized around a set aside for several plenary sessions, in
(b) coupling between the dynamics and geo- five- to six-week–long summer program, the which junior and senior participants together
chemical fluxes of Earth’s surface and inte- core of which is a four-week tutorial aimed are encouraged to propose topics for multi-
rior; and (c) Earth’s evolution from its early at advanced graduate students, post-docs, disciplinary research projects. Their rel-
violent beginnings to its modern state. and faculty. CIDER encourages sustained, evance to CIDER and to the annual theme,
Significant progress on these questions can in-depth interactions among participants. To as well as timeliness and feasibility, are dis-
only be achieved through efforts involving achieve this, senior participants are required cussed. This is a remarkable self-organizing
several fields (e.g., seismology, geodynam- to spend at least two weeks on site, while process—while nothing is planned or pre-
ics, mineral physics, petrology, geochemis- students and post-docs commit to the entire programmed, it always seems to work!
try, geomagnetism, geology), which provide tutorial session.
complementary constraints on Earth’s struc- By the end of the two-week lecture ses-
ture, dynamics, and evolution. All these The four-week tutorial includes two sion, five to seven research topics emerge,
fields have evolved to very high levels of weeks of structured and intense lectures and each involving groups of about five to
specialization, making the latest research tutorials, designed to bring both junior and eight participants, balanced in disciplinary
senior participants up to speed in the differ-
ent disciplines, with a focus on a particular

GSA Today, v. 27, https://doi.org/10.1130/GSATG329GW.1. Copyright 2017, The Geological Society of America.

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