WILL YOU BE ABLE TO COLLECT ENOUGH
VALID EVIDENCE IN THE TIME ALLOWED?
Asked by Vivian Saadeh,
UT-Dallas
Answered by R. J. Stern - Chief Scientist - COOK07MV
Thanks for your question Vivian. I won't be able to answer your question until we get the rocks back in the lab and start analyzing them for their chemical and isotopic composition. In any case, it is impossible to extend the present cruise longer than the time that we have been scheduled for. These research cruises are planned at least a year in advance and the ship is scheduled for different studies after we get off the Melville on April 12. You are right, the Subduction Factory is a huge system and it is unlikely that we will understand it completely in our lifetimes. On the other hand, when I look back at what we knew about it when I started my studies of the IBM arc system 25 years ago, it is amazing how much more we now know compared to then. I do think that we will learn something important about how the Mariana Subduction Factory operates and we will be able to use this as a basis for the next generation of studies.