Convened by: Geoff Abers (Boston University), Jim Gaherty (LDEO, Columbia University), Greg Hirth (WHOI)

A MARGINS-sponsored workshop on "Interpreting Upper Mantle Images" will be held May 17-19, 2006, in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. The workshop will bring together experimentalists and theoreticians with seismologists imaging the upper mantle, with the aim of reaching some consensus on how seismic data constrain upper-mantle physical parameters. The workshop will focus on Initiatives of the MARGINS science program that require the upper mantle to be imaged. Both the Subduction Factory and Rupturing Continental Lithosphere have as goals the establishment of temperature and flow fields in the upper mantle in regions of melt generation, as well as imaging the distribution of melt and H2O within the mantle. Recent advances on many fronts - new images derived from MARGINS field campaigns, new experiments quantifying   volatile abundance in magmas and the impact of H2O and melt on rock seismic properties, increasingly realistic simulations of upper-mantle dynamics - suggest that a focused, integrated discussion will be fruitful.

The workshop will include two days of keynote presentations balanced by extensive discussion, accompanied by posters, and a final day for overview, synthesis, and summary of workshop outcomes. A small number of participants will deliver overview keynote talks, and most will be involved in discussion. Presentations and results will be disseminated after the workshop via an active web site to be maintained by the MARGINS Office .

Interested researchers from all countries should visit the meeting web site (reachable from http://www.nsf-margins.org/) and submit an online application by February 15, 2006. Post-docs and senior graduate students are encouraged to apply. Funding from NSF is expected to cover a significant fraction of travel and accommodation costs for US participants.