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OFFICE OF THE CHAIRMAN

Breakthroughs in scientific understanding during the past quarter century as well as innovative technologies for gathering and organizing large amounts of information are expanding the frontiers of knowledge in the earth sciences at an accelerating pace. Basic research has increased our understanding of the origin and internal workings of our planet, of the processes that modify our landscape, and of the evolution of life during times of quite different global environments. A new approach to studying earth processes, in which the earth is viewed as an integrated, dynamic system rather than a collection of isolated components, has emerged.

Solid-Earth Sciences and Society explores these important new directions in earth sciences research and examines how they can enhance society's ability to make wise decisions on resource development, waste disposal, environmental protection, natural hazards reduction, and land use. The report, which reflects a long-term effort by a diverse expert committee, presents a vision of this rapidly changing field: its scope and goals, its emerging research issues, and its scientific contributions and applications.

We have reached a critical time in the solid-earth sciences. Many in the professional community are shifting their focus from exploring for and developing resources to addressing environmental and social problems on global as well as regional scales. Others are working to maintain the research base and acquire the new knowledge upon which the applications are built. Solid-Earth Sciences and Society recommends priorities for future research and discusses the scientific challenges facing our society. It should prove helpful to the research community, to practitioners, to educators, to students, and to all of us with an interest in the earth sciences.

We are particularly indebted to the W. M. Keck Foundation, without whose support this would not have been possible.

THE NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL IS THE PRINCIPLE OPERATING AGENCY OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES AND THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF ENGINEERING

TO SERVE GOVERNMENT AND OTHER ORGANIZATIONS.

The GOAL is:

to understand the past, present, and future behavior of the whole earth system. From the environments where life evolves on the surface to the interaction between the crust and its fluid envelopes (atmosphere and hydrosphere), this interest extends through the mantle and the outer core to the inner core. A major challenge is to use this understanding to maintain an environment in which the biosphere and humankind will continue to flourish.

The solid-earth sciences are essential to:

• provide sufficient resources—e.g., water, minerals, and fuels;

• cope with hazards—e.g., earthquakes, volcanoes, landslides, tsunamis, and floods;

• avoid perturbing geological environments—e.g., soil erosion, water contamination, improper mining practices, and waste disposal; and

• learn how to anticipate and adjust to environmental and global changes.

The information needed to achieve the goal of the solid-earth sciences and to meet the societal challenges derives from research that can be described conveniently in a matrix of four objectives and five research areas. Research opportunities can be located within the elements of this matrix, and from these have been selected research topics of top-priority and high-priority.

The following four objectives are derived from the challenges facing society in which fundamental understanding of the solid-earth sciences plays a primary role:

• Understand the processes involved in the global earth system, with particular attention to the linkages and interactions between its parts (the geospheres)

• Sustain a sufficient supply of natural resources

• Mitigate geological hazards

• Minimize and adjust to global and environmental change

The following research areas provide promise of achieving the scientific goal:

• Global paleoenvironments and biological evolution

• Global geochemical and biogeochemical cycles

• Fluids in and on the Earth

• Dynamics of the crust (oceanic and continental)

• Dynamics of the core and mantle

The goal represents an integrated approach to the study of the earth system, requiring interdisciplinary investigations of the geology, physics, chemistry, and biology of the whole Earth, because all parts of the Earth are interconnected through geological, geophysical, and geochemical processes, some of which are monitored by biological activity near the surface.

Attainment of the specific objectives may be greatly enhanced by more complete understanding of processes occurring on a global scale. Boundaries between basic and applied solid-earth sciences are artificial.

This process-oriented, integrated global approach should be incorporated into revised earth science curricula in universities and schools. There are also educational opportunities in redefined engineering geology.

The National Academy of Sciences is a private, nonprofit, self-perpetuating society of distinguished scholars engaged in scientific and engineering research, dedicated to the furtherance of science and technology and to their use for the general welfare. Upon the authority of the charter granted to it by the Congress in 1863, the Academy has a mandate that requires it to advise the federal government on scientific and technical matters. Dr. Frank Press is president of the National Academy of Sciences.

The National Academy of Engineering was established in 1964, under the charter of the National Academy of Sciences, as a parallel organization of outstanding engineers. It is autonomous in its administration and in the selection of its members, sharing with the National Academy of Sciences the responsibility for advising the federal government. The National Academy of Engineering also sponsors engineering programs aimed at meeting national needs, encourages education and research, and recognizes the superior achievements of engineers. Dr. Robert M. White is president of the National Academy of Engineering.

The Institute of Medicine was established in 1970 by the National Academy of Sciences to secure the services of eminent members of appropriate professions in the examination of policy matters pertaining to the health of the public. The Institute acts under the responsibility given to the National Academy of Sciences by its congressional charter to be an adviser to the federal government and, upon its own initiative, to identify issues of medical care, research, and education. Dr. Kenneth I. Shine is president of the Institute of Medicine.

The National Research Council was organized by the National Academy of Sciences in 1916 to associate the broad community of science and technology with the Academy's purposes of furthering knowledge and of advising the federal government. Functioning in accordance with general policies determined by the Academy, the Council has become the principal operating agency of both the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering in providing services to the government, the public, and the scientific and engineering communities. The Council is administered jointly by both Academies and the Institute of Medicine. Dr. Frank Press and Dr. Robert M. White are chairman and vice chairman, respectively, of the National Research Council.

The Committee on Status and Research Objectives in the Solid-Earth Sciences was charged by the Board on Earth Sciences and Resources with preparing a comprehensive and critical review of the current state of the science, to identify opportunities for research during coming decades, and to consider the issue of establishing priorities. The study was supported by a major grant from the W. M. Keck Foundation of Los Angeles, together with grants from the G. Unger Vetlesen Foundation of New York, and the National Academy of Sciences' Arthur L. Day Fund and Maurice Ewing Earth and Planetary Science Fund. In addition, the following scientific societies provided support: American Association of Petroleum Geologists; American Institute of Professional Geologists; American Geological Institute; Association of American Geographers; Association of American State Geologists; Association of Earth Sciences Editors; Geological Society of America; Society of Economic Geologists, Inc.; Society for Sedimentary Geology/SEPM; and Society of Vertebrate Paleontology. No funds for the study were specifically requested from federal agencies.

The committee began its work with a series of meetings during the summer of 1988 to plan its approach and to initiate the study. There was a conscious decision to organize the report around two principal themes: (1) basic understanding of solid-earth processes and their interaction with other parts of the earth system and (2) societal issues in which the solid-earth sciences provided significant information in the decision-making process. There was no attempt to organize the study on a disciplinary basis or to review the appropriateness of specific federal agency programs.

The committee formed 21 panels to help synthesize the vast body of earth science knowledge on specific societal issues or related to a few subdisciplines. The panels and their membership are included in Appendix B;

over 150 earth scientists were involved in this process. The panels, through several individual meetings, produced draft reports that provided a major input to the report. Because of differences in approach and content among the panel reports, there are no plans to issue those draft materials.

In addition to input provided by individual committee members and drafts from the panels, the committee was aware of the findings and conclusions of the many recent reports produced by the National Research Council, by various federal agencies, and by other consortia and planning groups. These are listed as a bibliography at the end of the appropriate chapters. These materials provided a second major input to the committee's deliberations. As many of the committee and panel members had participated in preparing one or more of these previous reports and long-range plans, this experience helped to put the discussions and the possibilities in a broad and informed perspective.

Input from other members of the earth science community was sought in several ways. A questionnaire about priorities in the earth sciences was distributed to the councils of 40 national societies representing the spectrum of the pure and applied earth sciences. A written solicitation for suggestions was published in EOS, and a letter was widely circulated to individual scientists from society membership lists and through chairmen of earth science and selected engineering departments in North American universities. Eighty-three responses were received. Presentations of the work of the committee were made at three national meetings: a lecture at the Geological Society of America in 1989, and focused symposia at the American Association for the Advancement of Science's annual meeting in 1990 and the American Geophysical Union's meeting in spring 1990. Open discussion sessions were held at the latter two symposia. When writing was under way, many individual earth scientists were approached to provide a paragraph or page on specific topics that were not covered adequately through the other input processes.

The committee held a series of meetings and workshops to consider the various inputs and to design the report. Several editorial subgroups were formed; these subgroups held several meetings and prepared drafts of the specific chapters, largely from the source materials. The draft chapters were circulated to the full committee for comment. Based on the comments, revisions were made and redistributed to the committee. At a final workshop, the committee discussed the report as a whole and reached consensus on the various priorities.

The committee's overall approach was to determine the most important earth processes and then to consider what methods and facilities would be most effective in providing answers to the process-oriented problems. The committee recognized that in a field as diverse as the solid-earth sciences research must advance on a broad front. In preparation for, and during the final workshop in October 1991, the committee members reviewed a draft of the report and selected a top-priority research topic in each of eight areas, together with supporting research programs and the infrastructure required for implementation of the programs.

This report covers the workings of the whole Earth, concentrating on solid-earth processes and their influence on and interactions with human society. The table below illustrates the report's structure, which consists of seven chapters following the Executive Summary. A global overview of the present status of the solid-earth sciences is presented in the first chapter. The second chapter deals with the processes on Earth that are driven by internally generated heat; it includes some discussion of plate tectonics, volcanoes, earthquakes, the origin and history of the continents, and where research is going in all those areas. The third chapter complements the second by addressing two processes driven by the solar energy that falls on the surface—erosion and deposition—and portrays how they have operated since the beginning of earth history. It also tells the story of life on Earth and of its evolution as revealed by fossil

organisms, including such issues as catastrophic extinction. The fourth chapter treats resources—land, water, and mineral deposits, including metals, oil, gas, and coal—in light of the two previous chapters. The fifth chapter deals with hazardous phenomena such as earthquakes, volcanoes, and unstable land surfaces. It also describes how human beings interact with the Earth, changing its environment both locally, as in urban pollution, and globally, as in the composition and temperature of the ocean or atmosphere. The sixth chapter looks at how the solid-earth sciences are practiced, where research is going, what demographic changes are happening, the nature of changes in instrumentation and data handling, and the international role of the solid-earth sciences. The seventh chapter summarizes the goals of the solid-earth sciences, the research opportunities, the facilities required, and the priorities and ends with a list of recommendations.

Each chapter is introduced by an essay. At the ends of Chapters 2 through 5, specific research opportunities related to the topics addressed are summarized in a research framework. At the ends of Chapter 6 and 7, recommendations are listed. These front and back portions of each chapter are shaded in the table, and highlighted in the report. Appendix A

gives information on the budgets of federal government research programs.

There are several different ways to sample the report:

• The Executive Summary conveys the essentials.

• The Executive Summary and Chapter 1 give a global overview of the whole volume.

• The shaded essays provide the essence of each chapter without the detail.

• The shaded research opportunities outline important research without the detailed background.

• Chapter 7 gives a detailed discussion of opportunities and priorities.

• The bodies of Chapters 2 through 6 provide a more technical treatment of the fields.

SOLID-EARTH

SCIENCES AND SOCIETY