应美国能源部、美国国家科学基金会、美国地质调查局和美国宇航局的要求，美国国家科学委员会组织专家，研讨驱动固体地球科学研究的重大科学问题。这些问题的研究将深刻影响我们对地球的理解。

At the request of program managers at the US Department of Energy, US National Science Foundation, US Geological Survey and NASA, the US National Research Council has assembled a committee of experts to identify the grand  research questions driving the solid-Earth sciences. The answers to these questions could profoundly affect our understanding of the Earth.