Professor Philip Skemer and his co-conveners Professor Maureen Long (Yale University), and Professor Laurent Montési (University of Maryland) welcomed over 50 researchers from around the world to discuss the current state and future opportunities for observing, modeling, and interpreting seismic anisotropy.

This workshop was funded by the National Science Foundation, with additional support from the McDonnell Center for the Space Sciences and the Department of Earth, Environmental, and Planetary Sciences. Invited speakers included Magali Billen (University of California, Davis), Sarah Brownlee (Wayne State University), Manuele Faccenda (University of Padua), Lars Hansen (University of Minnesota), Agnes Kiraly (University of Oslo), Joshua Russell (Syracuse University), Carl Tape (University of Alaska), Jessica Warren (University of Delaware), and Jonathan Wolf (University of California, Berkeley).

Participants took part in two full days of presentations, discussions, and poster sessions. Topics covered included modeling flow in the mantle, deformation of experimentally and naturally deformed geologic materials, and theoretical and observational seismology.

The workshop gave the researchers an opportunity to examine and discuss the three intertwined fields of seismology, geodynamics, and rock deformation. Workshops that bring together scholars from these three disciplines are rare. The workshop at Washington University was inspired by a similar meeting held at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute in May 2006.  Workshop participants commented on the tremendous strides that have been achieved over the last 20 years to better understand the connection between deformation processes and seismic observations. 

Washington University’s Scott Rudolph Hall provided an ideal location for the workshop. As the departmental home of Earth, Environmental, and Planetary Sciences on campus, workshop attendees were also able to pay a visit to the Matthew Grossman Mineral Museum and tour Professor Skemer’s Rock Deformation Lab.

^{Group photo of workshop attendees on Brookings Hall steps at Washington University in St. Louis.}

^{Professor Skemer welcomes researchers to workshop in Rudolph Hall.}

^{Professor Skemer conducting a lab tour in the Rock Deformation Lab.}