Report on the Activities of the ICSU Scientific Committee on the Lithosphere/International Lithospheric Programme

Submitted by Soeren Gregersen, IUGG Liaison to SCL/ILP

Since the IUGG General Assembly in Birmingham I have attended 3 bureau and committee meetings of SCL/ILP. These meetings have been held in conjunction with other international meetings of geophysicists and geologists, IUGS 2000, IASPEI/IAGA 2001, and AGU Western Pacific Geophysics 2002. In connection with the meetings I have contacted the liaison officers for those IUGG Associations that have appointed such liaisons (IAGA, IASPEI, IAG and IAVCEI) but I have received no special instructions from any of the Associations.

Since the IUGG Birmingham meeting, the leadership of the Lithosphere committee changed from President Alan Green (Switzerland) and Secretary General Joerg Erzinger (Germany), to the new president Asahiko Taira (Japan) and Secretary General Kaye Shedlock (USA). The Lithosphere committee is functioning well in covering those parts of geophysics that are close to geology. The projects taken up are carefully evaluated to contain both a significant amount from the geophysical and geological sides. And it is emphasized that the projects have participants from many countries, developed and developing.

The Lithosphere committee operates in four themes.

  • Within the theme of Geoscience Of Global Change one active project has recently started: Methane hydrate - Global distribution and geological processes.
  • Within the theme on Contemporary Dynamics And Deep Processes the following projects are or have been active:
  • World map of major active faults (in the publishing phase, but there are still some loose ends in the global coverage);
  • Earthquake recurrence through time (setting up a data base, but ending in 2003 because the SCL/ILP bureau judges that it is not possible to continue this paleoseismology project any longer. HEREBY, I REQUEST THAT IUGG/IASPEI NOTE THAT PALEOSEISMOLOGY SHOULD FIND SOME NEW HOME BETWEEN GEOPHYSICS AND GEOLOGY);
  • Mantle plumes, hot spots and geodynamics of continental rifting and break-up (mainly produced results through their meetings and ended in 2002);
  • Earthquakes and megacities initiative (cooperated with engineers and managers of mitigation measures with good backing from ICSU and many large cities, ended 2002);
  • Global strain rate map (struggling with many kinds of data);
  • Earthquake potential (recently started).

Within the theme of Continental Lithosphere the following projects are active:

  • Processes and geodynamics in the formation and exhumation of ultrahigh-pressure metamorphic terrain (very important in geology, but geophysics is a sufficiently significant component of the project. It has a great emphasis on some Chinese rock complexes);
  • Global impact studies (on its way).

Within the theme on Oceanic Lithosphere only one project is active: Hydrology of the oceanic lithosphere.

Within SCL/ILP, the 3 regional committees on the Himalayas, the Andes, and Europrobe conduct varied activities. The regional committee for Africa is recently slightly more successful than the previous attempts. There are two non-regional co-ordinating committees: continental drilling, which successfully co-ordinates the efforts on deep scientific drilling in big countries; and interdisciplinary lithospheric surveys which serves as a forum for deep geophysical research with emphasis on seismic investigations.

A basic request that I have delivered to the SCL/ILP bureau many times, is that it is important that they keep the IUGG Executive Committee well informed. Since I have now been appointed as a member of the SCL/ILP Bureau, a new IUGG representative is needed.

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