New Research Opportunities in the Earth Sciences - New Research Opportunities in the Earth Sciences - page 37

clear: further coordinate the interdisciplinary effort to advance understanding of
dynamic failure at all scales from fault zone to remote ground shaking. This
ambitious effort is under way, and sustaining it should provide major advances over
the next decade.
Recent Advances—EarthScope Project
EarthScope is the first Major Research Equipment and Facilities Construction
(MREFC) project conducted by the Earth sciences, receiving $200 million of NSF's
MREFC support from outside of the Directorate for Geosciences (GEO) and an
increase in GEO/EAR annual funding that provides ongoing Operations and
Maintenance (O&M) support projected to continue through at least 2018. EAR has
built up EarthScope research funding steadily by designating funds from divisional
budget increases since the onset of the project. The success of EarthScope is critical
to establishing a precedent for future efforts to draw MREFC funding to the
discipline. The fact that the 2003-2008 EarthScope facilities construction phase was
completed on time and on budget has strongly positioned EAR for future MREFC
competitions and for National Science Board and congressional support of future
Earth science projects. Achieving full success of the project will involve completion
of the science plan defined in the original proposal and updated in the EarthScope
Science Plan for 2010-2020 (Williams et al., 2010).
The scientific rationale for following through on the EarthScope program in
the next decade is compelling. Densification of geodetic and seismic observations
along the plate boundary on the western coast of the United States and along the
Alaska-Aleutian volcanic arc has already resulted in exciting discoveries about
faulting and deformation processes described above. Seismic, geodetic,
magnetotelluric, and geochemical data collected by EarthScope are progressively
revealing deep crustal and upper-mantle structures under North America, unveiling as
the Transportable Array sweeps eastward. Fundamental questions such as the deep
configuration of the Juan de Fuca plate, the fate of other subducted portions of the
Farallon plate, deep crustal delamination processes under the Basin and Range and
deep structure of the Colorado Plateau and Rio Grande rift, the detailed structure and
mantle flow beneath the Yellowstone volcanic center, and the lithospheric contrasts
across the Rocky Mountain front are all being vigorously addressed with hundreds of
papers appearing (see Figure 2.12). Large-scale deformation of western North
America is being revealed by the geodetic instrumentation with unprecedented
resolution (see Figure 2.13). Prospects are good for resolving many long-standing
large-scale framework questions about the driving processes for North American
geological history. Further eastward migration of the Transportable Array will expose
unknown structures beneath the eastern continental margin and then across Alaska,
where there have been relatively few seismic instruments. Unraveling the complex
history and processes of North American evolution has commenced but will require
the synoptic framework structures anticipated from the full EarthScope program. As
this framework emerges from the NSF-led effort, interagency coordination may help
this understanding to penetrate into mission agencies such as the Department of