Margins

A Research Initiative for Interdisciplinary Studies of the Processes Attending Lithospheric Extension and Convergence

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• Publisher: National Academies Press
• Year: 1990
• eBook ISBN:
  9780309543279
• Edition: 0
• Topic: Physical Sciences

Approximately 70 percent of the world's population is concentrated in the coastal borderlands, which geologists recognize to be the present continental margins. This new book on these continental margins provides a detailed account of a meeting which brought together specialists in marine and terrestrial geology, geochemistry, and geophysics. The workshop garnered widespread support and enthusiasm for a new direction in margins research focused on interdisciplinary studies of the fundamental processes of continental margin evolution. Scientific problems and solutions were identified for both divergent and convergent margins. Results of the workshop show that many of the fundamental plate interaction processes are common to all margins, whether formed by extension, contraction, or translation. This conclusion suggests a unified approach to margins research. A margins initiative has been proposed to follow up on the workshop results by developing science programs aimed at understanding the processes that control the initiation and evolution of continental margins.

Table of contents

• Margins: A Research Initiative for Interdisciplinary Studies of Processes Attending Lithospheric Extension and Convergence
• Copyright
• PREFACE
• Contents
• PART I REPORT OF THE CONTINENTAL MARGINS WORKSHOP
• PART II REPORTS OF THE WORKING GROUPS
• PART III BACKGROUND PAPERS
• ACTIVE CONTINENTAL MARGINS MECHANICS OF PLATE MOTION
• ACTIVE CONTINENTAL MARGINS EGEOLOGIC EVOLUTION OF ACTIVE CONTINENTAL MARGINS
• ACTIVE CONTINENTAL MARGINS MASS AND CHEMICAL TRANSFER
• PASSIVE CONTINENTAL MARGINS MECHANICS OF RIFTING OF THE LITHOSPHERE
• PASSIVE CONTINENTAL MARGINS RIFT AND PASSIVE MARGIN BASINS — THE SEDIMENTARY RECORD
• APPENDIX