Award Abstract #0216520
Aquisition of Geophysical Field Equipment for Earth Science Research and Teaching at the University of Alabama

NSF Org:	EAR Division of Earth Sciences
Initial Amendment Date:	August 9, 2002
Latest Amendment Date:	June 20, 2003
Award Number:	0216520
Award Instrument:	Standard Grant
Program Manager:	Russell C. Kelz EAR Division of Earth Sciences GEO Directorate for Geosciences
Start Date:	August 15, 2002
Expires:	July 31, 2004 (Estimated)
Awarded Amount to Date:	$170000
Investigator(s):	Antonio Rodriguez abrodrig@email.unc.edu (Principal Investigator) Dennis Harry (Former Principal Investigator) Richard Groshong (Co-Principal Investigator) Chunmiao Zheng (Co-Principal Investigator) Audrey Huerta (Co-Principal Investigator)
Sponsor:	University of Alabama Tuscaloosa 801 University Blvd. TUSCALOOSA, AL 35487 205/348-5152
NSF Program(s):	INSTRUMENTATION & FACILITIES, MAJOR RESEARCH INSTRUMENTATION
Field Application(s):	0000099 Other Applications NEC
Program Reference Code(s):	OTHR, 1189, 0000
Program Element Code(s):	1580, 1189

ABSTRACT

0216520

Harry

With support from this Major Research Instrumentation grant, the Department of Geological Sciences at the University of Alabama will purchase geophysical field equipment to facilitate research and teaching activities associated with our department's emphasis on Natural Resource Exploration, Conservation, and Remediation. Equipment to be purchased includes a ground penetrating radar system, potential field surveying equipment, a sediment coring system, and equipment to support high-resolution marine seismic surveys. Combined with existing land and marine seismic surveying systems, shallow coring facilities, and state-of-the-art Earth Imaging Computational Facility, the requested equipment will establish a robust facility for acquisition and analysis of geophysical data needed to support continued growth in a wide variety of research and teaching activities at UA. The equipment will create an environment conducive to interdisciplinary research that is ideally suited to the faculty in the department, and should greatly expand intra- and extramural collaborative research and teaching activities and efforts to provide service to state and local communities. Specific plans for use of the equipment include NSF, DOE, and privately funded research initiatives in coastal processes, groundwater flow and contaminant transport, fossil fuel resources, sedimentary basin analysis, and tectonics. Examples of such projects that will make use of the equipment in the immediate future include: (1) shallow geophysical imaging of the aquifer at the Macrodispersion Experiment (MADE) test site in Columbus Mississippi, with the goal of developing a stratigraphic context for hydrologic conductivity models used for contaminant transport modeling; (2) potential field surveying of the Black Warrior Basin and adjacent Appalachian and Ouachita Fold and Thrust belts, with the goal of determining the relationship between basin subsidence and orogenic tectonics; and (3) integrated geophysical and sedimentological studies of coastal systems with the goal of constraining the timing and physical processes of environment formation.

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