Proceedings of the Oji International Seminar on Accretion Tectonics, September 1981, Tomakomai, Japan

Accretion-collision tectonics in mobile belts is one of the most important new topics in solid earth science. A special seminar on this subject, the Oji International Seminar on Accretion Tectonics, was held from the 10th to 16th September, 1981, in Tomakomai, Hokkaido, Japan. It was sponsored by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science and the Fujihara Foundation of Science, organizers were S. Uyeda, Earthquake Research Institute, University of Tokyo, Amos Nur, Department of Geophysics, Stanford University, and M. Hashimoto, Department of Geology, National Science Museum, Tokyo. More than fifty geoscientists, thirty from Japan and twenty from abroad, met together to present findings from their recent studies and exchange ideas about accretion-collision phenomena in the circum-Pacific mobile belts. Two field days were also spent in the Horokanai area, central Hokkaido, to examine and the Horokanai ophiolite. The the Kamuikotan high-pressure metamorphic rocks latter is a fragment of ancient ocean floor crust that has been obducted onto the Kamuikotan rocks at the time of collision of the Okhotsk Micro-continent with Asia. The seminar was by no means a large congress. However, to the best of our knowledge, it was the first international conference on accretion-collision tectonics. The meeting was highly successful and we believe that it has opened an important new era in the study of plate tectonics.

Understanding the structure and nature of movements within the Earth's crust has become increasingly important as we try to understand the history of the Earth and try to use this knowledge as a key to events in the future. This is especially relevant to those everincreasing communities populating the edges of the Pacific Ocean. This collection of papers deals with the tectonic modelling and evolution in some of the most seismically active regions in the world. Structural and stratigraphical analysis, together with geophysical, petrological and geochemical data give us some insight into tectonic events from the past and how they affected ancient landforms, and gives us a clearer understanding of earth movements and, therefore, allows us to predict catastrophic events such as earthquakes with greater accuracy.

In this work, 60 specialists come together to discuss the regional occurrences of Jurassic rocks. Not only is this the first comprehensive synthesis of Jurassic geology and palaeontology, but it is in fact the only one of its kind for any geological system.

This volume is an extended Proceedings of the ''Ophiolite Symposium'' which was held during the 29th International Geological Congress, Kyoto, Japan, 24 August--3 September, 1992. If focuses on the multiplicity and diversity of the circum-Pacific Phanerozoic ophiolites and their intra-continental analogues. An introductory paper, summarizing characteristics of the circum-Pacific ophiolites is followed by papers dealing with particular segments of circum-Pacific ophiolite belts arranged in a counter-clockwise direction from New Zealand to Japan. These are followed by comprehensive documentations on multiple ophiolite belts within the Asian continent, as well as by a paper on a Tethyan ophiolite in Iran. Additionally, a report and a general view on the Late Proterozoic ophiolites are included.

This volume lays the physical and conceptual groundwork for the Pacific World series, exploring both the constraints imposed and the opportunities offered to humanity by the physical environment of the Pacific region. Organized from the perspectives of "Big History" and macro-geography, the volume presents a series of major studies and surveys by authors from a range of disciplines. It opens with perspectives on the ocean, and closes with questions of human settlement, diffusion, and trans-Pacific contacts. Geologists write of the origins of the Pacific, its geological structure, and the problem of tsunamis; climatologists and oceanographers discuss the El Niño Southern Oscillation and the ocean waters; biologists and biogeographers find patterns in the life of the Basin - as is shown, all these have their impact on the potential of the region for human use and settlement. Finally, geographers, anthropologists, and archaeologists deal with the peopling of the Pacific islands, the settlement of the Americas, and the incidence and importance of pre-modern links across the Pacific.