Acquisition of a subsurface radar imaging facility at Penn State

[04:19 . 19]该奖项是根据2009年美国复苏和再投资法案（公法111-5）资助的。这笔拨款用于购买探地雷达（GPR）设备、实时运动学GPS系统、3d可视化软件和现场硬化笔记本电脑。该设备将支持宾夕法尼亚州立大学地球科学系的研究和研究培训，这将受益于探地雷达成像近地下的能力。购买的具体设备包括一个具有多个钻孔天线（频率为50、100和200兆赫）的探地雷达系统，以支持地层学、构造和水文学研究，以及一个高频脉冲探地雷达系统，用于对冰川的厚度、内部结构和基础接触进行成像。该设备将支持一系列PI和学生的研究，包括南极西部冰原的冰流动力学研究，溶质在地下水系统中的运动研究，曲流和辫状河系统的形态动力学研究，成土作用和山坡过程的研究，以及活动板块边缘附近埋藏断层的古地震学研究。特别是，利用探地雷达系统研究极地大陆冰盖对气候变化的响应具有深远而及时的社会意义。探地雷达与地震反射技术相结合，提供了数百米高分辨率冰川结构成像的手段，并探测下垫沉积物的结构和性质，这些沉积物起到润滑或减缓冰川向海洋推进的作用。在GPR操作、数据分析和解释方面接受过培训的学生将在土木工程和环境咨询领域获得就业机会，这些领域越来越依赖GPR作为近地下成像工具。

0841901KirbyThis award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).This grant supports acquisition of ground penetrating radar (GPR) equipment, a real-time kinematic GPS system, 3-D visualization software and field hardened notebook computers. The equipment will support research and research training in the Department of Geosciences at Penn State University that will benefit from the capability of GPR to image the near subsurface. Specific equipment to be purchased includes a GPR system with multiple borehole antennas (at frequencies of 50, 100 and 200 MHz) to support stratigraphic, tectonic and hydrologic studies and a high frequency pulsed GPR system to be deployed for imaging the thickness, internal structure and basal contacts of glaciers. The equipment will support a range of PI and student research including studies of the dynamics of rivers of ice draining the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, studies of the movement of solutes through ground water systems, morphodynamic investigations of meandering and braided river systems, studies of pedogenesis and hill slope processes, and paleoseismological investigations of buried faults near active plate margins. In particular, research use of the GPR systems for study of the response of polar continental ice sheets to climate change is of profound and timely societal interest. GPR, in conjunction with seismic reflection techniques, offers the means to image glacial structure at high resolution to hundreds of meters and to probe the structure and nature of underlying deposits that serve to lubricate or slow glacial advance toward the sea. Students trained in GPR operation, data analysis and interpretation are well poised to gain employment in a host of civil engineering and environmental consulting fields that increasingly rely on GPR as a tool for near subsurface imaging.