REPORTS OF UNION COMMISSIONS
Committee on Mathematical Geophysics
W. R. Peltier, Chairman, CMG
University of Toronto, Department of Physics, Canada
The Committee on Mathematical Geophysics is an Inter-Association Committee whose purpose is to promote the development and application of mathematical methods and appropriate theoretical techniques for the solution of geophysical problems across the complete spectrum of sub-disciplines.
The earliest incarnation of the present CMG Committee was as the Working Group on Geophysical Theory and Computers which was initially led by V.I. Keilis-Borok and functioned as one component of the International Upper Mantle Project.
Although from its earliest inception the work of this group was inclusive of many of the geophysical sub-disciplines, it is probably correct to say that its activities were driven for the most part by the field of seismology.
The first meeting of the WGGTC was held in Moscow and Leningrad in 1964 and the last in Moscow in 1971 with intervening meetings held once yearly.
Subsequent to 1971 the group was re-structured as the present Committee on Mathematical Geophysics which has met on a semi-annual basis since that time, beginning with a meeting in Banff (Canada) in 1972.
The schedule since 1986 has included the following sequence of major CMG sponsored conferences:
| 1986 | Oosterbeek (The Netherlands)
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| 1988 | Blanes (Spain)
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| 1990 | Jerusalem (Israel)
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| 1992 | Taxco (Mexico)
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| 1994 | Villefranche (France)
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At the time of the Oosterbeek meeting the CMG was chaired by Freeman Gilbert of the IGPP in La Jolla, California (USA) who was then completing a four year term.
From 1988 until the time of the Taxco meeting in 1992, the committee was led by Albert Tarantola of the IPG in Paris (France).
Although this most recent sequence of meetings has continued to include a strong component of seismology and solid Earth geophysics, beginning with the Villefranche meeting in 1994, the scope of the Committee's activities has been considerably broadened.
The scientific topics addressed at this meeting were organized around the general theme of "Complex space-time geophysical structures" and included:
(1) The physics of Earthquakes
(2) Aspects of geophysical turbulence
(3) Mantle dynamics and seismic tomography
(4) Coupled Earth processes.
The goal of the present CMG Committee is to play a strongly integrative role across the full spectrum of the Union Associations in a way that is consistent with current trends in the development of the geophysical sciences.
Certainly at the level of theory the present impetus is strongly towards the development of an understanding of the Earth which is less compartmentalised by subdiscipline than has been viewed as sensible in the past.
The current CMG group has therefore elected to organise its ongoing activities around the theme of "Dynamic Complexity", a theme which is intended to capture the wide range of work that is presently ongoing across all of the geophysical sciences and centered generally on non-linear processes.
By way of continuing to develop its activities along the lines first established at the meeting in Villefranche, the CMG is sponsoring two major events at the 1995 General Assembly in Boulder, Colorado, namely:
A - Dynamic Complexity - A Union Symposium - U4
B - Inverse Problems in Geodesy and Geophysics A Union Symposium U7 (joint with IAG)
The first of these Symposia is focused upon a representative range of issues which it is the intention of CMG to continue to explore in the context of its future meetings.
The second is focused upon a central aspect of theoretical geophysics that served as one of the principal foci for CMG activities in the past.
The next CMG Conference has now been scheduled to be held in the week of June 17, 1996 in Santa Fe, New Mexico (USA) where the event will be hosted by the Santa Fe Institute.
The local organising committee for this Conference, the first to be held in the USA since the Lake Arrowhead meeting in 1980, will be led by Don Turcotte of Cornell University and John Rundle of the University of Colorado.
Contributing to the development of the programme and to the financial arrangements will also be Dan Rothman (MIT), the CMG Secretary for North America, Roel Snieder (Utrecht), the Vice-Chairman of the Committee and Didier Sornette (Nice), the CMG Secretary for Europe.
The Conference will once again feature both fluid Earth science and solid Earth science topics as well as problems connected with the theoretical integration of composite (coupled) systems.
