Scope

Understanding fluid-mediated processes in subduction zones is a key question in Earth Sciences. The study of mass transfer and recycling in deep settings is a multidisciplinary and rapidly expanding field of research. However, the quantitative understanding of the role of fluids on large-scale mass exchange between Earth’s reservoirs remains limited. This is largely due to the lack of collaborative efforts between Earth Sciences disciplines to address these issues.

This conference aims at building a community around fluids processes in subduction zones to joint individual efforts lead by the different communities. We expect to bring together leading scientist, and the future players, in the field of experimental/theoretical fluid geochemistry, thermodynamics, petrology and geodynamics. We will focus in bridging communities and on improving communication between scientists from distinct disciplines with the goal of defining strategies for an efficient integration between experimental/theoretical studies of fluid-rock interactions, field observations and geodynamic models for fluid migration. We plan to survey the state-of-the-art in each community, share new experimental/analytical/computational techniques, discuss specific needs and identify new avenues for integrating knowledge across the scales (i.e. from the atomic to the field scale) in the study of fluid-mediated processes in subduction zones.

The conference schedule is planned to maximize interactions between participants and the exchange of ideas by including scheduled discussions in the oral and poster programmes, break-out discussion groups and a round table.

Themes

The conference will be organized around four themes:

• Theme 1: Experimental/theoretical studies of fluid properties – the fluids perspective
• Theme 2: Natural observations – the rock perspective
• Theme 3: Thermodynamic modelling of fluid-rock interactions – the equilibrium perspective
• Theme 4: Coupling geochemistry and geodynamics – the dynamic perspective