COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH: Tectonics of the North America Eurasian Plate Boundary in East Asia

9814784

Scholz

The broad zone of deformation in eastern Asia encompassing the boundary of the Eurasian and North American plates is the least understood of major plate boundaries. Recent availability of high-precision geodetic (GPS) measurements in eastern Siberia, Korea, and Japan, together with seismological and geological data provides the opportunity for a significant advance in understanding of this enigmatic region. To achieve this goal, the PI's will perform an integrated analysis of the repeated GPS measurements in 1999 of 15-20 key sites, and a morphological analysis of high-resolution topographic data for the region. They expect their geodetic analysis to constrain, for the first time at the level of a few millimeters per year, the kinematics of deformation from central Asia to western North America. The pattern of deformation across these areas will help to illuminate the tectonics of East Asia and their relationship to subduction of the Pacific plate and the India-Eurasia collision.