Summer school: A multidisciplinary study of uplift and deformation in the Calabrian Arc

Sept. 1-12, 2008
Università della Calabria, Arcavacata (Cosenza), Italy

Summer school announcement

Summer school schedule, presentations, and readings

List of participants

Overview

The Calabrian Arc project summer school was held on September 1-12 2008 at the Arcavacata campus of the University of Calabria.  The school was funded by the Continental Dynamics program of the US National Science Foundation with additional contributions from the Department of Physics of the University of Calabria and from Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (Rome, Italy).

The summer school is one of the educational components of the Calabrian Arc project and was meant to promote the impact of our work beyond the community of scientists directly involved with the project.  The school aimed to introduce the students to the diverse subject areas involved in the project and to offer them an opportunity to participate in a "live" multidisciplinary research program.  The teachers in the school were project scientists and the students were thirty-eight doctoral candidates and early career researchers.  Fifteen students came from US institutions, with the remainder from Cameroon, Canada, Egypt, Ethiopia, Greece, Israel Italy, Spain, Turkey, and the United Kingdom.

Program

The school consisted of classroom sessions and field demonstrations.  The topics covered in the classroom included (instructors in parenthesis):

• Calabria in the Tyrrhenian-Apennine system (A. Malinverno, C. Faccenna)
• Results of CAT-SCAN project (M. Steckler, L. Margheriti)
• Structural geology (M. Reitz, L. Seeber, L. Minelli)
• Thermochronology (M. Steckler)
• Geomorphology (C. Stark, T. Dewez)
• Geochronology (J. Schaefer, R. Finkel, S. Huot)
• Geodynamic modeling (L. Lavier)
• Seismology and earthquake hazard (A. Amato, I. Guerra, L. Seeber)
• Sedimentology (S. Critelli)
• GPS geodesy (N. D'Agostino)

Field trip topics were (instructors in parenthesis):

• Structural geology (L. Seeber, M. Reitz)
• Geomorphology and geochronology of fan deltas and marine terraces (C. Stark, T. Dewez, S. Huot)
• Geomorphology in the Messina Strait area (B. Dumas, G. Valensise)
• Sedimentology and tectonics (S. Critelli)

The school closed with a session where the students presented their own research and its relation with the Calabrian Arc project.

Feedback

We requested feedback from the participants by email, and received very positive responses.  The multidisciplinary nature of the school was widely appreciated, as seen in the quotes that follow:

"I thought that the presentations on the different methods being applied were well done and useful ...  the course was a worthwhile experience and I learned a lot".

"I really liked the concept of the school's interdisciplinary approach ... I enjoyed listening to all of the lectures, especially those outside my discipline, because it broadened my perspective ...  Focusing on what each discipline can constrain and the strengths and weaknesses of the methods was one of the highlights of the course."

"The introduction to a number of sub-disciplines and techniques about which I was relatively uninformed was for me one of the best things about the school".

"I have really appreciated the ... school bringing together students and professors with very different backgrounds in an open, friendly and stimulating atmosphere".

"The multidisciplinary nature was definitely the best part ... It was really useful seeing how a single problem can be approached from so many different angles, most of which I had no experience with."

The responses also included ideas for improvement.  The main suggestions were more time for interaction and discussion in the lectures and field trips, and a more comprehensive introduction to the complex tectonic units of the Calabrian Arc.

The Calabrian Arc project summer school was a success.  The students were excited to learn about the broad range of topics and methods in our multidisciplinary research, and our techniques and results were disseminated in the international scientific community beyond the collaborators of the project.

Organizing committee of the Calabrian Arc project 2008 summer school