The IGCP (International Geoscience Program) is a cooperative enterprise of UNESCO and the International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS) and it is focussed on GEOSCIENCE IN THE SERVICE OF SOCIETY. Since 1972 the organization has been stimulating comparative studies in the Earth Sciences. After three decades of successful work, the "International Geological Correlation Programme" continued, as "International Geoscience Programme". IGCP has made research results available to a thousands of scientists around the world with nearly 400 funded projects.
The project "Low-temperature thermochronology: applications and inter-laboratory calibration" is a multi-year project aimed at knowledge transfer across the therochronology community. The project is mainly focused on annual international meetings, and the meeting in Alaska will be the second such gathering, with the first being in Pisa in September 2007.
Thermochronology techniques are widely used to investigate many different areas in the geosciences. A number of well-established fission-track and (U-Th)/He laboratories have been set up around the world. Given the relatively low cost of the equipment and power of the technique, researchers in many developing countries are interested in the installation of new laboratories. Some of these countries are sending students abroad to learn the techniques but, after training, very few of them apply their knowledge in their home countries. This project is aimed at empowering them to establish facilities of their own and to make valuable connections in the international community. This project helps researchers from developing countries to raise money for new laboratories and to fill the technological gap between western and developing countries.
Although thermochronology has been widely used for nearly 40 years, some procedures are not standardized and and some aspects of the basic theory and applications of thermochronology are still being developed. Given the wide interest expressed by the thermochron community, we have the chance to significantly increase the knowledge on the methods, especially through inter-laboratory calibration. The definition of some analytical protocols will represent a target of primary importance for any existing and future laboratories.
Quantification of geological processes is a key task of primary importance in the Earth Sciences. Low-temperature thermochronology is widely used in hydrocarbon exploration, in the exploration and sustainable management of water and mineral resources, and in the analysis of the relationships between tectonics and climate change. The main applications of thermochronology are:
- quantification of exhumation processes and relationships between tectonics, uplift, erosion and climate;
- thermal history of sedimentary basins;
- provenance of sediments.
1) The transfer of knowledge to developing countries. Low-temperature methodologies are relatively low-cost analytical techniques that have a number of powerful applications in different fields. This knowledge transfer will fill an important gap between well-established labs and emerging labs.
2) Testing methodologies and applying results. Fission-track analysis has been used for years in mineral exploration and tectonic studies. Helium dating has only recently emerged, and the integration of different methodologies are largely unexplored. Moreover, the development of key modeling techniques improve our understanding of results and findings.
IGCP Project 543 Leaders:
Project leader: Massimiliano Zattin (University of Bologna, Italy),
Project Co-Leaders: J. I. Garver (Union College, USA), Vitaliy A. Privalov (Donetsk National Technical University, Ukraine), Alexei V. Soloviev (Russian Academy of Sciences), Cornelia Spiegel (University of Tuebingen, Germany), Maarten de Wit (Cape Town University, South Africa), Dewen Zheng (Institute of Geology, China Earthquake Administration)
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