| ST. Elias Erosion and tectonics Project (STEEP) | |
| STEEP is a multidisciplinary project focused on understanding how or if glacial processes are linked to tectonics. The basic working hypothesis is founded fundamentally on the modern concept that most tectonic systems are always near a general state of failure on all active slip systems (faults and/or ductile flow systems). If you accept this premise seemly small things can have a major impact. In particular, the "small thing" here is the agent of glacial erosion. The basic question is do glaciers in active tectonic regions occur where they do because the faults are there to promote erosion or are the faults where they are because the glaciers aid the process of erosion to focus the deformation on that particular fault system. (A variant of the classic which came first, the chicken or the egg?) The project is really just getting started at this writing. The first field season is the summer of 2005. Look here for great pictures and news updates in the months to come. | |
| My involvement in this project is as a seismologist. In collaboration with the University of Alaska we will be building an operating the broadband array illustrated below over the next 3 years. Call this fun an games with helicopter as all of the planned sites can only be reached by helicopter and are at very remote locations in the mountains of southeastern Alaska. --need steep station map here--- |
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