What is SZ4D
A community-driven initiative for a long-term, interdisciplinary research program to define the limits and possibilities of predicting geohazards
SZ4D, or Subduction Zones in four Dimensions, is a community-driven initiative for a long-term, interdisciplinary research program to understand the limits and possibilities of predicting subduction zone geohazards. The group works together to create the multifaceted infrastructure and other resources needed to enable new discoveries. SZ4D brings together a diverse community of US-based and international scientists from a wide range of disciplines and backgrounds who study earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and surface processes
Subduction zones, where one tectonic plate slides beneath another, produce the most devastating seismic, volcanic, and landslide hazards on the planet. These geohazards pose a significant risk to human population centers, disrupting entire societies. Major advances in understanding the science behind subduction zone hazards could yield tangible benefits for communities in the affected regions, including the possibility of useful forecasts of large earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and landslides. Yet, we have only limited critical understanding of the complex physical and chemical processes controlling the occurrence, timing, and magnitude of earthquakes, tsunamis, and eruptions.
SZ4D brings together a diverse community of scientists across disciplines in a long-term collaborative effort to make major advances in understanding subduction zones by leveraging existing efforts, deploying new instrumentation, and developing more sophisticated and accurate models.
SZ4D committees, and working and integrative groups are currently engaging 136 representatives from 77 institutions across US and South American research communities and disciplines. SZ4D serves a growing community of 3000 scientists from around the globe.
The SZ4D Research Coordination Network
From 2018 to 2022, the SZ4D Research Coordination Network (RCN) funded by the National Science Foundation had for objective to coordinate and guide the development of the SZ4D Initiative, turning the conceptual SZ4D Vision into a unified, concrete community plan for a decade-long coordinated research effort.