Marine Geological Samples Laboratory: Graduate School of Oceanography, University of Rhode Island(support of marine sample curation)

海底岩石、岩心、珊瑚、热液喷口流体和烟囱沉积物、沉积物和其他材料的样品是宝贵的科学资源，是在科学海洋考察中花费巨资收集的。一些样本来自浅海、近岸环境，具有不寻常和短暂的特征，另一些样本来自洋中脊、海底山、深海平原、火山岛的根部和大陆架。许多样本来自海洋表面以下数英里的难以接近的地方，由专门的机器人车辆、载人潜水器、取芯设备和/或岩石挖泥船从海底采集。为了保存这些有价值的样本，并使其他科学家可以利用它们进行最初的收集者没有想到的研究，美国国家科学基金会海洋科学部的海洋地质和地球物理项目资助了四个专业运营的储存库，这些储存库存放着航海科学家收集的样本。该奖项资助罗德岛大学海洋地质样本实验室管理、储存和分发海洋海底样本。样品应要求分发给希望更好地了解海洋盆地、其资源分布以及地球如何工作的科学家和教育工作者。在过去的3年里，这个储存库已经向美国和国际科学家分发了8000多个海底物质样本，以提高我们对海底、海洋地壳、地幔、海底火山活动、海洋化学历史和地球气候的认识。来自这些储存库的样品已被用于开拓新的分析技术，并为海底、大陆边缘和海底岩浆过程提供了重要的见解。该奖项增加了罗德岛大学的一项重大投资，通过支持研究生的形式增加了额外的工作人员，致力于与其他存储库工作人员一起维护收集，收集和验证提交的样本信息。并将这些数据和元数据输入到一个在线数据库中，让感兴趣的各方可以通过互联网看到这些数据，这样科学家和教育工作者就可以找到并索取用于研究和教育的样本。这项工作的更广泛影响包括研究生水平的课程参与，以及通过中小学校团体、当地社区组织和其他有关方面的参观向公众宣传。该奖项还为海洋地质基础设施的重要组成部分提供支持，并为没有获得大量联邦资金的州（即EPSCoR州）的机构提供支持。

Samples of seafloor rocks, cores, corals, hydrothermal vent fluids and chimney deposits, sediments, other materials are valuable scientific resources that are collected at great expense on scientific oceanographic expeditions. Some samples come from shallow, near-shore environments of unusual and ephemeral character and others come from mid-ocean ridges, seamounts, the abyssal plain, the roots of volcanic islands, and continental shelves. Many samples come from inaccessible places miles below the surface of the ocean and are retrieved from the seafloor by specialized robotic vehicles, human occupied submersibles, coring devices, and/or rock dredges. To preserve these valuable samples and make them available to other scientists for studies not envisioned by the original collectors, the Marine Geology and Geophysics Program of the Division of Ocean Sciences of the National Science Foundation funds four professionally run repositories that house samples collected by seagoing scientists. This award funds the curation, storage, and distribution of marine seafloor samples by the University of Rhode Island's Marine Geological Sample Laboratory. Samples are distributed upon request to scientists and educators wishing to better understand the ocean basins, the distribution of its resources, and how the Earth works. Over the past 3 years, this repository has distributed more than 8,000 samples of seafloor material to US and international scientists to advance our knowledge of the seafloor, ocean crust, mantle, seafloor volcanism, and the history of ocean chemistry and Earth's climate. Samples from the repositories have been used to pioneer new analytical techniques and provide important insights into seafloor, the continental margins, and sub-oceanic magmatic processes. This award augments a significant investment by the University of Rhode Island by supporting additional staffing in the form of a graduate student dedicated to working with the other repository staff to maintain the collection, collect and verify submitted information on the samples, and enter these data and metadata into an online database that makes the collection visible to interested parties via the Internet so scientists and educators can find and request samples for research and education. Broader impacts of the work include graduate level course involvement and public outreach via tours for primary and secondary school groups, local community organizations, and other interested parties. This award also provides support for an essential piece of marine geology infrastructure and provides support to an institution in a state that does not receive a significant amount of Federal funding (i.e., an EPSCoR state).