From the 2001 EarthScope Science Plan:

  A New View Into The Earth - The Deformation of a Continent

From the 2009 EarthScope Website:

  Exploring the Structure and Evolution of the North American Continent

2002 EarthScope Scientific Targets - Continental Structure and Evolution

1) What is a continent?
2) How is lithosphere formed?
3) How are continental structure & deformation related?

Large-Scale Continental Deformation

1) Lithospheric Strength and Crust-Mantle Coupling
2) Composition, Fluids, and Rheology of the Lithosphere
3) Spatial and Temporal Scales of Deformation

May 2009 TWG Discussion - Big EarthScope Results on Continental Lithosphere

Few, but some projects in the works
SNEP delamination
Surface-wave noise tomography

Science Problems:  4-D evolution of North America

Composition of Crust:  Building a continent from mantle arcs, accretion, magmatic distillation, delamination

Stabilization of Cratons: Crust, lithospheric keel growth of cratons towards continents

Composition => rheology:  Layering & 3-D complexity layered strain response; strain localization/not asthenosphere-lithosphere coupling

Rifting Cont. lithosphere:  Active, failed, passive margins

Wilson Cycle:  Why supercontinents rupture along sutures?

Unstable Craton:  Plate tectonics doesnʼt capture everything

Intracratonic Strain:  Seismicity, basins, density

Needs to Achieve Goals:

Need acquire & integrate a broad range of disciplines  

Stratigraphy, petrology, geochemistry, geochronology
  Xenoliths, potential fields, MT, seismic, geodetic

Higher-resolution, shallower seismic images needed the crust:

Link to geology & to society surface-wave noise controlled-source, both refraction & reflection

Multi-disciplinary integration strategies

  MT coordinate with TA
  Multi-disciplinary proposals
  Links with ICDP, MARGINS, …
  Databases: geophysics & geology

Data & models; open access

Workshops

At non-EarthScope venues
On targeted geologic problems
Geoinformatics outreach: how to access