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MARGINS Focus Sites Image Gallery

Central America

Description: The Central America region is the MARGINS focus site for the Subduction Factory Initiative, the Seismogenic Experiment (SEIZE) Initiative and Costa Rica-Nicaragua focus area.

Gulf of California

Description: The Gulf of California has been selected as one of two MARGINS focus sites for the study of rifting of continental lithosphere. The Gulf is particularly well suited to a large-scale study of rift processes, because it is actively rifting, contains clear rift segments that will enable reconstruction of the entire rift-drift history across unambiguous conjugate margins, has a reasonably well understood geologic and tectonic history, shows along-strike variations in extensional style, and is logistically accessible.

Izu Bonin Mariana

Description: This western Pacific Ocean area has been chosen as the site of the MARGINS Subduction Factory experiment in the Mariana arc system.

Nankai

Description: This region including the southern islands of Japan, the Japan trench and the Nankai trough has been selected by MARGINS for focused study. Most of the world's great earthquakes and tsunamis initiate in the zone of underthrusting or seismogenic zone of subduction zones. The Seismogenic Zone Experiment (SEIZE) hopes to understand the relationship among earthquakes, deformation, and fluid flow in this environment.

New Zealand

Description: The New Zealand region is a MARGINS focus site for the Source to Sink initiative. New Zealand is a major source of terrigenous sediment, supplying ~1% of the suspended load to the Earth's oceans.

Papua New Guinea

Description: The Papua New Guinea region is a MARGINS focus site for the Source to Sink initiative. The goal of the initiative is to develop a quantitative understanding of margin sediment dispersal systems and associated stratigraphy (sediment or rock strata formations).

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Red Sea and Gulf of Suez

Description: The Red Sea/Gulf of Suez region is a MARGINS ancillary focus site for the Rupturing Continental Lithosphere initiative. The goals of the initiative are to develop a clearer understanding of the physics by which the continental lithosphere deforms, the manner in which strain is partitioned, either spatially or temporally, and the timing, composition, spatial distribution and melting depth of rift-related magmas.

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