PDF《MEETINGS》

E-mail: [email protected];

DAVID TARBOTON, Utah Water Research Laboratory, Utah State University, Logan;

E-mail: [email protected];

DAVID MAID- MENT, Center for Research in Water Resources, Uni? versity of Texas at Austin;

E-mail: maidment@mail. utexas.edu The authors of this report are members of the CUAHSI HIS development team. MEETINGS Scientific Coring in the Lake Tahoe Basin PAGE

4 Lake Tahoe ranks among the largest, oldest, and deepest lakes in North America. In addi? tion, the lake is located at a major tectonic boundary These factors make the Lake Tahoe basin an exciting natural laboratory for study? ing the interaction between tectonics and cli? mate in a high-altitude temperate setting. A recent meeting to explore the potential benefits of a comprehensive program of scien? tific coring in the Lake Tahoe basin attracted

67 researchers from

28 institutions.The meet? ing was supported by a grant from the Drilling, Observations, and Sampling of the Earth'

s Con? tinental Crust (DOSECC) consortium with additional funding provided by the John Muir Institute for the Environment and the Tahoe Environmental Research Center at the Univer? sity of California, Davis, the Institute for Geo? physics and Planetary Physics at the University of California, San Diego, the Desert Research Institute in Reno, Nev, the Academy for the Environment of the University of Nevada, Reno, and the U.S. Geological Survey. Participants identified five broad areas where fundamental scientific questions could be addressed by coring and ancillary studies: paleoseismology/tectonics/basin evolution, the Quaternary climate record, the Holocene climate record, the fluvial/glacial/hydrologic record, and the deep-lake and sediment bio? sphere. In each case, basic scientific informa? tion gained through coring would provide new data that could also be used to address important societal problems, ranging from coping with global climate change to protect? ing and preserving the fragile environment of the Lake Tahoe basin. Paleoseismology, Tectonics, and Basin Evolution Lake Tahoe is located at the structural boundary between the Sierra Nevada micro- plate and the Basin and Range extensional province. Although its seismicity is currently low, the basin is traversed by several active faults, some of which show considerable off? set. At the workshop, participants determined that suites of cores (10-30 meters long) taken in the lake on opposite sides of these faults would greatly improve understanding of the paleoseismological record of these faults and would provide new insights into the tectonic evolution of the basin. These insights, combined with detailed map? ping and new trenching studies on land and real-time geodetic data gathered by the Plate Boundary Observat........