ER News
Summary report of the 2008 Joint ILP Task Forces workshop in Ensenada, Mexico
François Roure
IFP, Rueil-Malmaison, France
Following the previous successful meetings of the ILP Task Force on Sedimentary Basins, CICESE (Center of Scientific Research and Graduate Studies in Ensenada) and the Mexican Geophysical Union (Unión Geofisica Mexicana, UGM) hosted this 2008 workshop in Ensenada, Baja California, Mexico, from September 21 to 26. This workshop, organized by Luis Delgado (CICESE) and Felipe Ortuño (Instituto Mexicano del Petróleo), involved also the other ILP Task Forces dealing with mantle processes, volcanism and paleostress.
60 geologists and geophisicists participated to the meeting, 50% coming from Mexico and 50% from abroad.
During the opening session, Federico Graef (Director of CICESE), Josée Manuel Romo (Vice-president of UGM), Luis Delgado and Felipe Ortuño (organizers of the workshop), provided the welcome address, which was followed by an overall presentation of ILP and the International Year of Planet Earth by Sierd Cloetingh (President of ILP).
Arturo Martin-Barajas and Ramón Mendoza-Borunda lead a brilliant field trip on September 22-23 across the northern part of the Gulf of California, from Mexicali to the sea shore, thus allowing to document both low and high-angle normal faults, volcanic records of the rifting processes, as well as modern interactions between continental (fluvio-deltaic) and brackish-evaporitic sedimentation. Seismic profiles and wells data were also helpful in stimulating in depth discussion on the timing of deformation and overall crustal architecture of the basin.
Following the discussions on Mexican basins held during the oral/poster sessions and the field trip, the last day was mostly devoted to a pannel discussion (Luis Delgado and Arturo Martin for CICESE, Leni Scheck- Wenderoth and Sierd Cloetingh (Panel Chair) for ILP, Kirk Osadetz and Hans Thybo for Research Institutes and Universities), Noëlle Schoellkopff and Patrick Unternehr for the Industry), aiming at identifying points of common interest for the Mexican and international Earth Sciences communities, and defining a road map for further collaborations.
Abstracts have been published in GEOS, volume 28, N°1, 70 pp (September 2008 issue of the Journal of the Unión Geofísica Mexicana). A pdf of this volume, which includes also the Field Trip Log, can still be downloaded from UGM website.