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Director's Statement
Mission Statement:
The
Institute for Crustal Studies fosters research focused on: 1) the evolution of
the earth from its inception to present; 2) characterization of the physical,
chemical, and biotic processes that modulate that evolution and control the
distribution of natural resources; and 3) interactions among the solid earth,
hydrosphere, atmosphere, and biosphere, including humans, that shape the
earth's surface and impact society. This research encompasses intervals ranging
from the duration of an earthquake to the time required to create a continent
and relies on collaborative efforts among geologists, physicists, geographers,
and chemists.
Director's Statement
Mission
and Goals. Two overarching goals encompass most research conducted through
the Institute for Crustal Studies: the first is to foster interdisciplinary
research that broadens understanding of the evolution of the Earth from a
geological, biological, and climatological perspective; and the second goal
promotes research focused on the modern and recent processes that shape the
Earth's surface and directly impact society. Topics like the assembly and
break-up of continents and the evolution of life fall into the first category;
whereas the second ranges from earthquake dynamics to water resources and
climate change. With respect to the public, ICS promotes efforts to improve the
teaching of science, to broaden communication to the public, and to guide the
agenda of major research programs at the national or international level.
Evolution of Goals through
Time. The Institute for Crustal Studies was initially conceived as an
interdisciplinary unit focused on the Earth's crust: the evolution of the crust
through time and space, the natural resources contained within the crust and at
its surface, and the natural hazards that result from geological processes
acting within it. Each of these topics remains a focus of considerable research
at ICS.
Over
the past decade, the ICS research agenda has expanded to include a greater
emphasis on landscape evolution, geomorphology, the evolution of life,
astrobiology, and geologic education. Much of this expansion results from
changes in the research personnel (recent appointees versus departing
professors, research scientists, post-docs, and graduate students) affiliated
with ICS, but some is a consequence of the transfer of grants and their
administration from the former Department of Geological Sciences to ICS in
2001. Moreover, topics that are perceived to have greater societal relevance
are receiving enhanced federal funding now in comparison to more "traditional"
topics. Researchers at ICS both respond to and are helping to drive that trend.
One
pervasive theme in most ICS studies has been and remains an emphasis on time
and the development of a temporal context within which to define events, rates,
and interactions at scales ranging from seconds to billions of years. Reliable
reconstructions of past events provide not only an understanding of how the
Earth evolved, but also a template with which predictions can be made.
Reconstruction of past climatic, tectonic, or biotic changes and the responses
to those changes enables an informed assessment of the potential impacts of
future changes.
A
long-term goal of ICS has been to facilitate the smooth submission and
administration of external grants in order to minimize the time and effort
researchers must spend on essentially administrative activity. Similarly, in
computing, ICS personnel make a concerted effort to anticipate problems,
implement solutions, and stay current of rapidly evolving technologies. Whereas room for improvement always
exists, researchers who have left ICS for academic appointments at other
universities consistently report that they greatly miss the efficiency,
timeliness, and friendliness of the grants administration and computational
services of ICS.
Contributions
to UCSB. ICS provides an environment that promotes interdisciplinary
research and facilitates scientific problem-solving that benefits from the
integration of diverse expertise. For example, ongoing collaborations between
researchers from Physics, Earth Science, Material Science, and Geography (among
others) are exploring problems ranging from earthquake dynamics and complex
systems to offshore oil seeps and greenhouse gases.
ICS
researchers are bringing in new instrumentation, often for multi-disciplinary
studies, that enhances the research capabilities of UCSB. During this past
year, a new electron imaging facility was funded by NSF. Although UCSB has a
high quality radiometric dating facility for Ar/Ar, we lack comparable
facilities for cosmogenic or U/Pb dating. As a consequence, our graduate
students, researchers, and faculty often travel to other campuses and
facilities to analyze samples. We hope/need to continue to improve the
analytical resources at UCSB through successful external grants.
Research
scientists in ICS commonly participate in teaching courses through the
Department of Earth Science. Many of the post-docs in ICS play a vital role in
advising and educating graduate students via short courses and participation in
graduate seminars. Over the past four years, an average of 40 graduate students
have participated in and been supported by ICS research projects. With support
from NSF, researchers from ICS take undergraduates, both as individual field
assistants and in coordinated groups, on off-campus research experiences to
sites in Antarctica, Asia, and New Zealand.
Evolving
Research Trends. Over the past decade, the focus of ICS researchers on more
recent aspects of Earth history has increased. ICS-administered research on
earthquake dynamics, active tectonics, hydrology, geomorphology, landscape
evolution, and climate change now commonly encompass time scales ranging from
the present back to 1000s of years. The reasons for this shift are multi-fold:
the record of change (both historical and geological) is increasingly complete
when approaching the present; the more recent record is commonly most relevant
for examining societal impacts; and the nature of interactions among different
components of the Earth system is most clearly analyzed when the record is most
detailed and complete.
Some
problems, however, cannot be reasonably addressed in this modern time frame or
setting. For example, processes that happen over millions of years and deep
within the Earth, evolutionary change before and after catastrophic events, and
conditions with no modern analogue require careful reconstruction of the
geologic record of the often distant past and are essential components of
efforts to understand Earth history. These represent a persistent focus of many
ICS researchers.
Public
Outreach and Impact. Several ICS projects highlight an emphasis on improved
teaching and communication of integrated Earth Science to the public. One
involves the Education Multimedia Visualization Center and is focused on
creating graphics and movies that capture provocative aspects of Earth history,
evolution, and site-specific phenomena, such as animations that can be used in
national parks. Outreach with the Santa Barbara Natural History Museum and
local schools is ongoing. Another project is developing a NOVA-style film on
research in the Himalaya that features UCSB graduate students, post-docs, and
faculty. A third example is the international conference on the Antarctic that
brings hundreds of scientists to our campus.
Whereas no integrated policy-oriented effort currently exists among ICS researchers, numerous ICS participants work individually and in small teams to guide scientific policy and research agendas at the state, national, and international level. Several members work on guidance and oversight committees for Earthscope (the largest initiative in solid earth sciences ever in the US), others guide the scientific agenda for the Southern California Earthquake Center (one of the most successful STCs in the country), and still others are setting research agenda for the International Atomic Energy Agency's use of geochemical tracers and developing guidelines for high-level nuclear waste repositories.
Highlights from 2006-2007. The high quality of research emerging from participants in ICS is exemplified by several scholars and projects.
•Frank Spera directs the Magma Dynamics Group at UCSB: a
high-profile multidisciplinary research effort centered defining the behavior
of magmatic-hydrothermal systems ranging from the nanoscale scale of molecular
dynamics to the grand scale of planetary evolution. Due to Spera's expertise in
volcano dynamics, he works regularly with the Dept of Energy to assess volcanic
hazards at the proposed Yucca Mtn. nuclear repository: a timely and critical
societal contribution.
• Following his pioneering efforts that defined the extraordinary history of rotation and growth of the Transverse Ranges, Bruce Luyendyk has turned much of his focus on the evolution of the Antarctic continent using a broad suite of geophysical tools: GPS, seismic, magnetics. Most recently, Luyendyk organized and hosted the International Symposium on Antarctic Earth Science at UCSB this past summer. This meeting brought together ~400 scientists from over 35 countries for a weeklong symposium geological bracketed by geological field trips.
• One of the more exciting hypotheses of the past few years
is that a meteorite impact ~12,000 years ago caused the extinction of large
mammals in North America and led to a well-known major climatic cooling event
(termed the "Younger Dryas"). Building up on her work on Permo-Triassic
extinctions, Luann Becker (and Jim Kennett of MSI) have been building a robust
data base to assess this hypothesis. Becker's interests extend beyond Earth:
she and her collaborators at Johns Hopkins were recently selected by NASA to
build an instrument to analyze organic compounds on Mars during an upcoming
mission.
Overview of the Year. External funding to ICS has
averaged about $3.0M/yr over the past 4 years, with the past year being close
to average. Given the Faculty and PI participation has continued its long-term
upward trajectory, and other
measures of activity, such as the number of projects administered, the number of agencies to which grants are submitted, and the number of new awards remained steady or showed modest increases. Whereas the success rate of proposals has increased to ~60% over the past 4 years, the fraction of the total funding requests that were approved for funding has dropped to ~20%, i.e., fewer of the large ICS grant requests are being funded.
Funding
has also been impacted by retirements and departures. Two ICS faculty members
have retired in the past couple years and two more will retire in the upcoming
year. Without new replacements, we expect some drop in proposal submissions due
to the changing demography. As has been true for every year of the past 5, another
assistant researcher left this year to take a tenure-track position. The
continued attrition of top-notch assistant researchers to high-quality
institutions bespeaks the high standards of achievement that characterize many
of them. Such losses, however, represent a sustained drain on ICS resources and
present a challenge in building a cadre of researchers that can rise through
the ranks and take on new leadership positions.
With
the exception of our MSO, we will have had a nearly complete turnover of our
administrative staff by September, 2007. Despite the inevitable disruptions
caused by such departures, ICS has kept functioning rather smoothly and
fulfilling its key role in submitting, administering, and reporting on grants.
We expect to be to full strength in a couple months.