COLLABORATION IN BASIC SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING (COBASE)

Endeavoring to share and exchange paleomagnetic data and equipment as well as tectonic experience on southeastern Siberia and north China, Robert Coe of the Earth Sciences Department of the University of California at Santa Cruz, invited Yury Bretshtein of the Institute of Tectonics and Geophysics, Far Eastern Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, for an eight-week visit in the early spring of 2001. Further, Coe hoped to acquire new experimental results on samples Bretshtein brought from Siberia and to compare results from the same samples measured both in Coe’s and Bretshtein’s laboratories.

While in Santa Cruz, Bretshtein worked with Coe daily in the laboratory interpreting and comparing paleomagnetic results for Paleozoic rocks of north China and the Mongol-Okhotsk and Sikhote-Alin fold belts. The agreement of Cambrian and Siluro-Devonian poles in the two regions is very interesting, suggesting that those parts of the fold belts were already amalgamated with north China by Late Cambrian time. This interpretation implies that the rocks of similar age studied in north China were remagnetized, probably in the Permian time.

Along with Coe and his UCSC colleague, Dr. Xixi Zhao, Bretshtein plans to collaborate further on the investigative work begun during this trip. Specifically, Bretshtein will focus his attention on obtaining data to elucidate the kinematic accretionary history of the terranes that make up southeastern Siberia and northeast China. Coe and Zhao will extend this research by establishing accurate paleomagnetic reference poles for the Siberian craton in Late Mesozoic and Early Cenozoic time. Once Bretshtein collects additional samples of various rock formations, the colleagues plan to prepare and submit a joint proposal to the National Science Foundation.

Coe notes that the COBASE program has been helpful to both sides: "Without it the likelihood that we would ever have met is small, because Dr. Bretshtein can very rarely attend international meetings. The opportunity to obtain funds to facilitate interchange of data and ideas and to lay the groundwork for collaborative research has a great effect in advancing science, out of proportion to the relatively small amounts of money involved. The social benefit is also large in terms of helping people in different countries gain a better understanding of each other."

Robert Coe and Yury Bretshtein

Bretshtein in His Office

Bretshtein in the Laboratory