The biennial Geoscience 2000 meeting in Manchester, April 17-20, 
will include a symposium on the Structural Architecture of Rifted 
Continental Margins for which submissions for talks and posters 
are now invited. We aim to attract a large industry presence and 
keynote addresses from national and international margins workers 
are planned. Due to the necessarily large display format of many 
geophysical datasets, posters may often be more appropriate and 
they will be strongly promoted. The deadline for abstracts is end-
November 1999. 

We already have an impressive range of speakers confirmed, 
including Bruce Rosendahl, Gilbert Boillot, Nick Kusznir, Derek 
Fairhead, Peter Cobbold, Ze'ev Reches, Alastair Beach,
Bob Holdsworth and others from here and abroad.

STRUCTURAL ARCHITECTURE OF RIFTED CONTINENTAL  
MARGINS: A SYMPOSIUM SPONSORED BY THE TECTONIC 
STUDIES AND PETROLEUM GROUPS OF THE GEOLOGICAL 
SOCIETY AND THE BRITISH GEOPHYSICAL ASSOCIATION 

ANNOUNCEMENT AND CALL FOR PAPERS 

Abstracts are invited for oral and poster presentation at the one-day 
symposium Structural Architecture of Rifted Continental Margins 
at Geoscience 2000, Manchester, England, 19 April 2000 

Rifted continental margins are the subject of considerable attention 
from the petroleum and academic communities - they contain a 
unique record of the denudation of continents and the formation of 
the adjacent ocean basins, their deepwater stratigraphy contains 
high-resolution environmental signals, and they are an under-
exploited petroleum repository. RCMs are now the focus of 
intensive hydrocarbon exploration programmes aimed largely at 
exploiting turbidite-hosted oil accumulations in deepwater settings 
close to the edge of the continental crust. 

Dramatic advances in seismic technology and deepwater drilling, 
and improved modelling of the structural, stratigraphic and thermal 
evolution of their sedimentary basins have led to detailed 
descriptions of the broad patterns of subsidence and uplift, 
sequence stratigraphy and deformation of sedimentary basins at 
RCMs. However, despite these advances in understanding basin 
evolution at RCMs, the principal controls over their whole-
lithosphere structural architecture, and the links between deep 
lithosphere structure and sedimentary basin development are 
surprisingly poorly understood. Key questions include: 
- What is the nature of the transition between oceanic crust and the
highly stretched continental 'feather-edge'?
 
- Is the "upper plate-lower plate" model of continental breakup  
still relevant or oversimplistic?
 
- What is the configuration and origin of the deep-rooted lineaments 
controlling the segmentation of RCMs?
 
- What elements of the fundamental structure of RCMs are inherited
from continental rifts?
 
Solving problems of whole-lithosphere structural architecture at 
RCMs is therefore particularly timely. Furthermore, the NERC and 
DTI have now announced the Ocean Margins programme, a 
scheme funded jointly by industry and academia that includes a 
theme addressing the structural architecture of RCMs. The 
symposium at Geoscience 2000 has two aims. 

First, a multidisciplinary discussion of the latest results from 
ongoing studies of modern and ancient RCMs worldwide, with 
special emphasis on identifying links between basin evolution and 
whole-lithosphere structural architecture. Secondly, to identify the 
major geological problems in understanding and exploiting RCMs 
and to develop a consensus as to the most effective approaches to 
tackling these problems. 

Convenors: 
Dr Jonathan Turner (TSG) 
The University of Birmingham 
School of Earth Sciences 
Birmingham B15 2TT 

[log in to unmask] 
tel. 0121 414 6155 
fax. 0121 414 4942 


Professor Bob White (BGA) 
University of Cambridge 
Department of Earth Sciences 
Downing Street 
Cambridge CB2 3EQ 

[log in to unmask] 

General Enquiries: 
The Conference Offoce 
The Geological Society 
Burlington House 
Piccadilly 
London W1V 0JU 

[log in to unmask] 
tel. 0171 434 9944 
fax. 0171 494 0579 

Web Site: 
http://www.geolsoc.org.uk 

Dr Jonathan Turner
The University of Birmingham
School of Earth Sciences
Birmingham B15 2TT
Tel. (44) 0121 414 6155 (voicemail)
Fax. (44) 0121 414 4942
Visit our website at http://www.bham.ac.uk/EarthSciences



%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%