MRI Collaborative: Acquisition of Expanded Distributed Temperature Sensing Instrumentation to Serve Community Demand and Stimulate Undergraduate Discovery

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1337486 Tyler This collaborative Major Research Instrumentation (MRI) Program grant supports acquisition of three new fiber optic Raman high resolution temperature profilers, or distributed temperature systems (DTS) at the University of Nevada - Reno and Smith College, a non-Ph.D. granting institution.. The instruments will build on capabilities at the Center for Transformative Environmental Monitoring Programs (CTEMPs) and expand capabilities for research and education at Smith College. New higher resolution capable DTS systems now offer the ability to measure temperature with precisions of 0.1 degree C at centimeter scale spatial resolution and temporal resolution of seconds over several kilometers of a fiber optic strand which can be deployed in lakes, rivers, snow pack, trenched in soil, run down boreholes or strung up trees or along civil structures. The capability promises continued advances in understanding of watershed hydrology, limnology, physical oceanography, cryosphere dynamics, soil science and terrestrial ecology. The PIs plan integrated use of multiple DTS systems to enable 2-D and 3-D imaging of environmental temperature fields for specific studies of groundwater recharge of lakes in regions where the Marcellus shale is being hydrofracked for shale gas production and for multi-borehole DTS deployments to image groundwater movements.***