Findings and Recommendations - New Research Opportunities in the Earth Sciences - page 89

highlighted in recent community research plans, such as those for geodynamics
(Olson, 2010), seismology (Lay, 2009), high-pressure mineral physics (Williams,
2010), GeoPRISMS (MARGINS Office, 2010), Cooperative Studies of the Earth's
Deep Interior (CSEDI) (Kellogg et al., 2004), and EarthScope (Williams et al., 2010).
The NRC (2008) report, Origin and Evolution of Earth , also identifies corresponding
Grand Challenges in how Earth's interior works, why it has plate tectonics and
continents, and how the processes are controlled by material properties. Addressing
these big-picture problems generally demands capabilities and resources beyond what
is normally accorded a single investigator, yet “small grants”-style research remains
the source of most innovation. Programs for larger-scale interdisciplinary
collaborations, such as GeoPRISMs, CSEDI, CIG, and Continental Dynamics, along
with community interdisciplinary activities such as CIDER will play increasingly
important roles in future synthesis, but core individual investigator programs will
remain important to foster the innovation found in more individualized research.
Productive synergistic collaborations are often serendipitous, and specific funding
mechanisms to prompt them, such as required menus of expertise on proposals, can
be ineffective or at least compromised. A sounder strategy is to provide mechanisms
for community cross-fertilization and communication, with intermittent bona fide
collaborative undertakings being recognized and supported.
With increasing resolution of contributing methodologies and expanding data
sets and modeling capabilities, there are opportunities to advance our understanding
of fundamental questions such as the configuration of mantle convection, quantities
and distribution of volatiles in the mantle, evolution of the core thermal regime, and
growth of the inner core. These key questions lie at the heart of understanding how
Earth evolves as a planet.
Finding 1: Sustaining progress in studies of the thermo-chemical dynamic system in
Earth's interior requires continued data collection—archival and open distribution of
seismic, geodetic, mineral physics, geomagnetic, and geochemical information on a
global scale. Community-vetted open software for seismology and geodynamics
calculations is very valuable for this research effort. These functions within current
NSF facilities and community organizations (e.g., Incorporated Research Institutions
for Seismology [IRIS], UNAVCO, EarthScope, Consortium for Materials Properties
Research in Earth Sciences [COMPRES], CIG) can be evaluated regularly to ensure
they are optimized and effective.
Finding 2: Focused research programs that support integrative interdisciplinary
coordination on deep Earth dynamic systems (e.g., CSEDI, GeoPRISMS) are
valuable for testing hypotheses and creating the synergies needed to answer long-
standing questions as a supplement to innovative individual investigator programs.
Finding 3: Graduate student training across the range of interdisciplinary
perspectives critical to integrative research is increasingly difficult to provide at
single research institutions; thus, community efforts for focused graduate training
such as provided by CIDER summer institutes can be valuable in this area. CIDER