AGU Session T-19: Salton Trough: Findings and Questions

Announcement of an upcoming AGU session, from Daniel Brothers, SIO:

AGU Session T-19:* Gulf of California-Salton Trough Rift Margin: Recent Findings and Remaining Questions

Invited Speakers:
Don Forsyth (Brown)
Christina Plattner (LMU München)
John Hole (Virginia Tech)
Arturo Martin-Barajas (CICESE)

We would like to encourage everyone working within the Gulf of California-Salton Trough rift system to submit an abstract to this Fall 2009 AGU Tectonophysics session. We welcome abstracts from all authors, regardless if they receive funding or not from the NSF-MARGINS Rupturing Continental Lithosphere initiative. The abstract deadline is Thursday, September 3, 2009. The period for abstract submission is currently open. Follow this link:

http://www.agu.org/meetings/fm09/program/abstract_submissions.php

to submit an abstract. Please feel free to contact one of the conveners with any questions.

Continental rifting and formation of ocean basins is a fundamental component of plate tectonics. The Gulf of California-Salton Trough represents an active oblique-divergent plate boundary that provides a superb natural laboratory to study processes driving continental rifting and the spatial and temporal evolution of a young rifted margin. The Gulf of California-Salton Trough has been a focus site for the NSF-MARGINS ‘Rupturing Continental Lithosphere’ (RCL) initiative for nearly a decade, resulting in transformative research and discoveries from a focused community of earth scientists. Although much has been discovered about this young rift during the past decade, many fundamental questions remain in the following areas: (1) understanding early continental break-up and extension, (2) the role of magmatism and fluids, (3) 4-D distribution of lithospheric strain, (4) the interplay of sedimentation and climate and their influences on rift architecture, (5) timing of marine incursion, and (6) the nature of the continent-ocean lithospheric boundary. As Margins RCL reaches its 10th year, this session serves to highlight recent and ongoing research in the Gulf of California-Salton Trough, and to summarize remaining questions regarding processes that rupture continental lithosphere. We invite all abstracts pertaining to the physical development of this rift system.

Conveners:
Scott Bennett (UC Davis) sekbennett@ucdavis.edu
Daniel Brothers (Scripps) dbrother@ucsd.edu
Jared Kluesner (Scripps) jkluesne@ucsd.edu