Acquisition of a subsurface radar imaging facility at Penn State

这项奖励是根据2009年《美国复苏和再投资法案》(公法111-5)资助的。这笔赠款支持购买探地雷达(GPR)设备、实时动态GPS系统、3-D可视化软件和现场加固笔记本电脑。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，使其受益于探地雷达成像近地表的能力。将购买的具体设备包括具有多个钻孔天线的探地雷达系统(频率为50、100和200兆赫)，以支持地层、构造和水文研究，以及将部署的高频脉冲探地雷达系统，用于对冰川的厚度、内部结构和底部接触进行成像。该设备将支持一系列PI和学生研究，包括研究向南极西部冰盖排放冰川的动力学，研究地下水系统中的溶质运动，研究曲折和辫状河流系统的地貌动力学，研究成壤作用和山坡过程，以及对活动板块边缘附近的隐伏断层进行古地震调查。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反应具有深刻和及时的社会意义。探地雷达与地震反射技术相结合，提供了以高分辨率成像数百米冰川结构的手段，并探测有助于润滑或减缓冰川向海洋推进的底层沉积物的结构和性质。受过探地雷达操作、数据分析和解释培训的学生将在越来越依赖探地雷达作为近地表成像工具的许多土木工程和环境咨询领域找到工作。

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.