Director's Statement

Established over 15 years ago, the Institute for Crustal Studies was conceived as an interdisciplinary unit focused on the Earth's crust: its geologic and geophysical history, the resources contained within it, and the natural hazards that result from geological processes acting upon it. Given UCSB's setting along a major plate tectonic boundary where faulting of the Earth's crust has created a spectacular, but hazardous geologic setting, the natural purview of ICS researchers and teachers was the building of continents, creation of ocean basins, prediction of earthquake hazards, and utilization of natural resources. Today, the Institute for Crustal Studies spans a broader swath of disciplines than ever before and is expanding into new research arenas, such as the role of climate in shaping the landscape, astrobiology and the imprint of asteroids on the prehistoric Earth, or the fate of elusive chemicals in groundwater systems. Our emphasis remains on how the physical Earth works, but we recognize that deepening our understanding depends on quantifying the interactions that occur at key interfaces, be they boundaries between tectonic plates, oscillating shorelines separating oceans and land, or the ultimate interface: the Earth's surface itself where atmospheric and erosional processes interact with tectonic ones.

Today, ICS projects are being conducted on every continent, graduate and undergraduate students are traveling to the Himalaya, New Zealand, and Antarctica to undertake thesis projects, and ICS scientists are collaborating with an expanding array of scientists and educators in foreign and domestic research sites.

ICS Project Sites 2001-2002

This diversification of research effort is readily exemplified by several new undertakings during the past year at ICS. A major interdisciplinary project focused on interactions between climate, erosion, and tectonics is underway in the central Nepalese Himalaya. Over 40 people (Nepalese, American, French, Finnish, Canadian, and Portuguese) are involved in this project which is led by researchers at ICS. Dr. Luann Becker, a newly appointed assistant research scientist in Astrobiology, has brought her research in fullerenes (Bucky balls), extraterrestrial tracers, and biomarkers to ICS. New research in deep marine sedimentation and hydrocarbon resources under Dr. Ben Kneller's direction is being supported by a recently created consortium of energy companies. Glaciers, landslides, climate change, erosion, and rivers have recently become a major focus for several ICS researchers.

Bridging to new horizons in Nepal

This broadening of focus has brought new vitality and challenges to ICS. We have seen a near doubling in externally supported research during the past year, and the coming year is already guaranteed to be even more successful. Our efforts to help guide national scientific agendas, to provide research resources to the broad scientific community, and to reach out to more public audiences assume diverse, yet effective forms. ICS members are helping lead the committees that are setting decade-long research agendas for major agencies like NASA, for focused research institutes like the Southern California Earthquake Center, and for new community-wide initiatives like Earthscope, an integrated initiative to use observations of earthquakes, crustal deformation, and geological/geophysical measurements to delineate how the North American continent was built. In fact, Earthscope will represent the largest single influx ever for infrastructure and research in the solid earth sciences, and ICS researchers are very actively involved in this initiative. New NSF education grants at ICS are supporting development of innovative instructional tools, ranging from accurate animations of complex motions of tectonic plates to 3-D visualizations of the changing characteristics of the world's oceans. Our researchers are working with filmmakers in remote places like Nepal and Australia to develop both IMAX- and NOVA-style programs for general audiences. Whereas reliable forecasts of when and where the next earthquake will occur remain elusive, when such events do occur, they provide an opportunity to gather a wealth of real-time data about how, why, and at what rate the crust ruptures catastrophically. But, Nature rarely acquiesces to produce earthquakes in the midst of existing networks, Hence, ICS developed and maintains the capability to rapidly deploy clusters of mobile seismometers; thereby creating a valued community resource. Oftentimes, new insight derives from re-examining the wealth of existing records with novel approaches. Recognizing the value of such records, ICS researchers have built internationally utilized databases of seismically induced ground shaking that now serve as invaluable test grounds for new models of earthquake processes.

The geologic wonderland that is southern California has long been a focus for many ICS researchers.  Some geologic processes are better expressed and rates of these processes are better defined here than almost anywhere else in the world. The geophysical infrastructure that has been built in Southern California, including dense arrays of permanent seismometers and GPS sites, provides a wealth of information on a complex, but knowable, rapidly deforming plate boundary. These instruments provide the data needed to understand the details of geophysical phenomena, such as how anastomosing fault systems accommodate plate motions or how the energy from earthquakes radiates outward, reverberates, amplifies or attenuates in sedimentary basins, and shakes the foundations of buildings and bridges.

ICS researchers have been major participants in the Southern California Earthquake Center (SCEC) since its creation 11 years ago. UCSB was one of 5 "core" institutions throughout that interval. This past year, in part due to the efforts of ICS

Example of numerical model output representing compressional (P) waves (in blue) and shear (S) waves (in purple) radiating outward from the Northridge 1994 earthquake hypocenter. This typifies one aspect of ICS-SCEC research in strong ground motions and wave.

researchers, SCEC has been re-funded for another 5 years. Although the number of core and affiliated institutions has now nearly tripled in the "new" SCEC, the fact that ICS researchers still garner ~10% of the total SCEC funding is indicative of the fundamental contributions they make to earthquake science.

Concomitantly, our overseas research has expanded considerably in the past few years. Over a dozen research projects are currently running abroad, such that ICS researchers are busy on every continent! Mammalian evolution recorded in the Altiplano, meteorological networks across the Himalaya, chemical fingerprints of ancient asteroids, and geophysical fingerprints of the break-up of continents form the focus of a few of these studies. Such diversity bestows a richness on the research enterprise at ICS and continues to create new avenues for interdisciplinary research and international collaboration.

During the past year, the number of undergraduate and graduate students involved in ICS projects increased 40% and 50%, respectively. These undergraduates won awards in the Geological Sciences departments for the outstanding undergraduate field geologist, for the only Honors thesis, and for outstanding academic achievement. Our ICS graduate students won the Geology departmental awards for the best student research paper, for outstanding research in volcanology, for outstanding research in field geology, and for a dissertation of the "highest merit."

The challenges that are presented by this expanding enterprise are perhaps not surprising, but they are real. In order to sustain effective interactions among the diversifying array of researchers, efforts to communicate plans, ideas, and results have to be enhanced.  The increased flux of proposals (>20%), augmented array of potential funding agencies, and the complexity of administering major collaborative grants routinely require overtime commitments from our administrative staff. Similarly, the success and effectiveness of our computing administration has encouraged researchers to switch to the ICS network, thereby increasing the network size (and administrative work) by doubling the locations served by it and increasing the number of workstations by ~30% in the past year. Despite creating new office space for 5 people within ICS this past year, our success with new grants and initiatives means that the addition of new researchers and technicians to support these research efforts has filled our space to overflowing. ICS's talented and dedicated staff, combined with the flexibility of our researchers, is permitting us, for the present, to meet these challenges. But, given the motivation of our researchers, the demands placed on staff and the requirements for space to conduct research can only be expected to grow.

            This has been a landmark year for ICS. We have a considerably greater diversity of projects than previously encompassed by ICS, more new funding than ever before, more forms of outreach and national service, more effective use of limited space, and continually enhanced computing and administrative services. Our expectations are rising!