Facility Support: Institute for Rock Magnetism

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1053743MoscowitzThis award provides $1,396,115 in continued NSF support over 36 months to operate the Institute for Rock Magnetism (IRM) which supports in-depth pure and applied research on rock, sediment and mineral magnetic properties. Funds provide for: PI and associate director summer salary support; a helium reliquification system to recover expensive liquid He; salary support for a Facility manager and staff scientists; travel support for the Visiting Fellows program and advisory committee meetings; support for consumables (e.g., liquid He, liquid Nitrogen and gases) and replacement parts; and publishing and mailing costs for the IRM quarterly newsletter. The IRM has been funded by the Instrumentation and Facilities Program (IF) in the Division of Earth Sciences for the last twenty years to support, develop and operate a world-class, international multi-user facility for studies in rock magnetism and paleomagnetism. IRM's goals include: 1) providing service to the community to foster a deeper understanding of the complex physical mechanisms that govern the magnetic behavior (under varying conditions of temperature, time, stress, and ambient magnetic field) of fine-particle assemblages including natural nanoparticles of iron oxides, hydroxides and sulfides; 2) providing the geoscience research community with access to a full suite of sensitive instrumentation for these detailed studies; 3) maintaining the facility instrumentation and computer network; 4) providing visiting scholars with the support necessary to use the facilities effectively, including technical, educational, and logistical components of support; 5) adapting methods and techniques from physics and materials science, as well as developing new methods, for using magnetic measurement data to characterize complex natural samples and to address questions of specific interest to geoscientists; and; 6) serving as a catalyst in widening and improving the applications of magnetic analysis in geological and biological studies, by holding workshops and conferences, and by maintaining active (and separately funded) research programs in those areas; and 7) .providing research-related news and information to the geoscience community and related disciplines through a web site, online database and quarterly newsletters. Continued facility support will provide and enhance research infrastructure for the geoscience community. IRM maintains and provides access to a set of advanced instruments for magnetic research that is unique in the Earth sciences, and fosters interdisciplinary collaboration by organizing biannual topical conferences and occasional training workshops. Undergraduates from UM, local colleges, and from around the country receive support through numerous programs including NSF-REU program and mentorship of IRM-resident graduate students, post-docs, faculty and staff. A new Summer School for Rock Magnetism will be started targeted at graduate and advanced undergraduates in the geosciences. IRM organizes interdisciplinary workshops, publishes information and articles for non-specialist audiences in our quarterly newsletter and on our web site, and maintains a public database of experimental results on well-characterized synthetic and natural magnetic materials.***