[CIG-ALL] Workshop: "Future directions for NSF-sponsored geoscience research in Tibet/Himalaya"

[Sue Kientz]

Dear Colleague:

On June 11-12 2010, we are convening a workshop on behalf of NSF's 
Directorate for Geosciences, to explore and provide guidance to NSF on 
"Future directions for NSF-sponsored geoscience research in 
Tibet/Himalaya" (see http://online.sfsu.edu/~leech/TibetGEOworkshop 
<http://online.sfsu.edu/%7Eleech/TibetGEOworkshop> ). This workshop 
immediately follows the 25th HKT (Himalaya-Karakorum-Tibet) meeting in 
San Francisco next June (see http://online.sfsu.edu/~leech/hkt25sf 
<http://online.sfsu.edu/%7Eleech/hkt25sf> ).

As a community, it is our responsibility to show NSF the scientific 
progress that has been achieved with the very significant support we 
have received to work on Tibet/Himalaya over the last 20 years; and to 
provide NSF with a clear statement and vision of our goals for the 
future, including the scientific progress we can expect if NSF continues 
its support of projects in this geographic region. As a community we 
need to identify which key geoscience problems and processes are best 
addressed in Tibet/Himalaya, what key datasets are needed, and how NSF 
can best support the evolving need for multi- and inter-disciplinary 
investigations.

The workshop will be held 0800 Friday June 11 to 1400 Saturday June 12, 
2010, at the Romberg-Tiburon Center of San Francisco State University. 
We anticipate that NSF will provide funding for 40 U.S. scientists and 
students to participate, and we will correspond with you again as soon 
as funding is secured (lead sponsorship from the Continental Dynamics 
Program of NSF), and our application form is available on-line.  We 
anticipate a January 15th deadline for your application for travel support.

We will be asking all applicants to summarize their personal list of the 
"top 5-10 unsolved questions in the Tibet/Himalaya system".  The 
workshop program will be built from these submissions, and will be 
strongly focussed on future directions as opposed to past results. We 
will therefore invite all prospective participants in the NSF GEO 
Workshop to provide a science "one-pager" describing previous results; 
and also to consider submitting their recent science results to HKT-25.

Please hold the dates June 11-12 for this NSF GEO Workshop, and feel 
free to offer us any feedback as we plan this meeting for the community, 
using our workshop e-mail address, TibetWorkshop at gmail.com 
<mailto:TibetWorkshop at gmail.com>

GEO Workshop conveners
Simon Klemperer, Stanford; Lucy Flesch, Purdue; Carmala Garzione, 
Rochester; Kip Hodges, Arizona State; Eric Kirby, Penn State; Mary 
Leech, SFSU; Anne Meltzer, Lehigh.