| NSF Org: |
EAR Division Of Earth Sciences |
| Recipient: |
|
| Initial Amendment Date: | March 23, 2010 |
| Latest Amendment Date: | March 23, 2010 |
| Award Number: | 0960342 |
| Award Instrument: | Standard Grant |
| Program Manager: |
Russell Kelz
EAR Division Of Earth Sciences GEO Directorate for Geosciences |
| Start Date: | April 1, 2010 |
| End Date: | September 30, 2013 (Estimated) |
| Total Intended Award Amount: | $300,001.00 |
| Total Awarded Amount to Date: | $300,001.00 |
| Funds Obligated to Date: |
|
| ARRA Amount: | $300,001.00 |
| History of Investigator: |
|
| Recipient Sponsored Research Office: |
1500 SW JEFFERSON AVE CORVALLIS OR US 97331-8655 (541)737-4933 |
| Sponsor Congressional District: |
|
| Primary Place of Performance: |
1500 SW JEFFERSON AVE CORVALLIS OR US 97331-8655 |
| Primary Place of
Performance Congressional District: |
|
| Unique Entity Identifier (UEI): |
|
| Parent UEI: |
|
| NSF Program(s): | Major Research Instrumentation |
| Primary Program Source: |
|
| Program Reference Code(s): |
|
| Program Element Code(s): |
|
| Award Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Fund Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Assistance Listing Number(s): | 47.050 |
ABSTRACT
Schultz
0960342
This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).
This MRI R2 award will provide NSF funding over 24 months to develop a instrumentation to support a National Geoelectromagnetic Facility (NGF). The facility will allow researchers to image Earth?s near-surface, crust and mantle electrical properties in three dimensions and at high-resolution. Rock and mineral electrical properties are defined by the presence and chemistry of magmatic and aqueous fluids, bulk chemical and mineral composition, formation temperature, and hydrogen and other volatiles content. The NGF will consist of 27 founding member institutions and 54 participating PIs. The facility will incorporate a national pool of geoelectromagnetic equipment. The equipment will be developed and fabricated by the OSU and the Zonge Engineering and Research Organization and maintained for checkout by research PIs. The instruments will be modular and low-power. They will be able to measure geoelectromagnetic variations over a micro-hertz to kilo-hertz range, imaging natural and artificial fields. NGF instruments will be critical for opening new research avenues and supporting ongoing studies in water, mineral and hydrocarbon exploration, CO2 sequestration, hydrologic and geothermal research, geomicrobiolgy, climate change studies, contaminant and reservoir monitoring, volcanic hazards studies, and geotechnics. This effort will establish a capability currently unavailable in the US. A pooled-instrument model will allow access to EM equipment and data products. The instrument pool will support a broad spectrum of research including seismology, glaciology, hydrology, exploration, climate change, hazards and geomicrobiology. It will support numerous investigators at multiple institutions. In so doing, associated graduate and undergraduate students will gain instrument access and EM experience. An existing outreach program (Summer of Applied Geophysical Experience) will be supported. A reference design for the new instrumentation has already been developed. Interface development and further benchmarking will ensue after release of the acquisition protocol to the community. Successful testing and validation will lead to design turnover and subsequent manufacture by the commercial partner.
***
PROJECT OUTCOMES REPORT
Disclaimer
This Project Outcomes Report for the General Public is displayed verbatim as submitted by the Principal Investigator (PI) for this award. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this Report are those of the PI and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation; NSF has not approved or endorsed its content.
We have entered an era of climate change, resource depletion, population growth and great pressure of natural systems. Numerous societal requirements impose increasing demands on geoscientists to better understand natural as well as human engineered geosystems. This imposes an overwhelming need for researchers across many different disciplines to peer beneath ground level, and to extract images of geological structures, the distribution of fluids such as water, magma, oil/gas and waste products from industrial and domestic purposes, and to locate areas where natural resources may be safely extracted, and where natural hazards might exist. These requirements exist at many different scales; from the near surface where there may be interest in getechnical or groundwater problems, to the deper parts of the crust and even into the mantle beneath, where large-scale Earth processes take place that continually reshape our planet, lead to the generation of earthquakes and of magmas that can lead to volcanic hazards.
Under NSF support, we have worked with an industry partner, Zonge International, to co-develop a new capability for imaging into the Earth's interior at all of these scales. We have produced the first ultra high fidelity, ultra wide frequency band series of geoelectromagnetic imaging instruments that can reveal the variations in the electrical properties of the subsurface from the shallowest scales in the near surface, through the entirety of the Earth's upper mantle. We have established a National Geoelectromagnetic Facility to enable researchers from many different disciplines to gain access to this cutting edge instrumentation.
Last Modified: 12/12/2013
Modified by: Adam Schultz
Please report errors in award information by writing to: awardsearch@nsf.gov.
