Community Facility Support: Management and Operation of a Continental Scientific Drilling and Coring Facility

该地球科学项目社区设施奖支持大陆科学钻井设施（CSDF）的运营和管理。几种类型的地球科学研究需要分析地下的土壤、岩石、水和微生物等材料。钻孔还可以在地表下安装仪器，以提高我们对地震过程的理解，或地表下的水运动，或形成不同矿物质和将岩石转化为土壤的过程，或利用地热能的最佳方法。随着时间的推移，沉积层沉积在湖泊中，每个沉积层都包含了沉积时湖泊周围环境的信息。从湖床收集岩芯样本可以分析沉积层，从而了解湖泊附近地区的气候、水、生态系统、火山和地球板块运动在湖泊的整个生命周期中是如何变化的。要想获得地表以下深处的这些物质，需要钻孔和岩心取样。这些程序复杂、昂贵，而且可能存在高风险，而且工具、仪器和数据系统都是专门的。CSDF每年支持数百个研究项目，从湖泊的短期取心到结晶岩石的深层钻探。社发基金的活动包括：项目发展；物流与承包；现场作业管理；外联、多样性和教育；租赁和销售专业设备和用品；岩心扫描、劈裂/拆片、子采样和描述；子样制备和分析；维护样本、数据、出版物和参考资料收集库的管理；计算机发展;有形基础设施发展；以及社区协调。科学钻探和取心对地球科学的发展至关重要。它们是获取未暴露在地表的新鲜、未风化物质的主要途径。来自湖泊和其他沉积盆地的岩心样品提供了环境和生态系统历史的档案，允许通过时间重建地球生命系统，以了解系统变化和生态系统的响应和恢复力。通过取样、原位测量和长期监测，岩心样品和钻孔提供了一种了解深层水文、地质和地球化学过程的方法。地下微生物群落可以进行采样和分析，以了解它们在岩石风化、断层力学和其他地质和地球化学过程中的作用。科学动机是多种多样的，包括水文学和流体运输、地球化学、地球微生物学、地球生命系统的古记录、火山学和岩浆学、构造学、地热能、断层力学和地震活动、岩石风化和火流星撞击。实现这一技术的取心和钻井作业通常复杂、技术含量高、成本高、风险大，所需的设备、工具、仪器和数据管理系统都是专业化的。尽管项目之间的需求不同，但许多共性通过利用共享的专业知识和资源来实现规模经济，即使项目的深度范围或成本是10万或更多。大陆科学钻井（CSD）设施根据这些社区的优先事项为他们提供资源。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This Division of Earth Sciences Program community facility award supports operations and management of the Continental Scientific Drilling Facility (CSDF). Several types of Earth science research require analyzing materials such as soil, rock, water, and microbes below the ground surface. Drilled boreholes also allow installation of instruments below the surface that improve our understanding of earthquake processes, or the movement of water below the surface, or processes that form different minerals and change rock into soil, or the best ways to harness geothermal energy. Over time, sediment layers are deposited in lakes, and each of the sediment layers contains information about the conditions around the lake at the time it was deposited. Collecting core samples from lakebeds allows analysis of the layers of sediment to understand how climate, water, ecosystems, volcanoes, and Earth’s plate motions have changed in the region near the lake, throughout the entire lifespan of the lake. Reaching these materials deep below the surface requires drilling and core sampling. These procedures are complex, expensive, and can be high risk, and the tools, instruments, and data systems are specialized. CSDF supports hundreds of research projects per year that involve short coring in lakes to deep drilling in crystalline rock. Activities of the CSDF include: project development; logistics and contracting; field operations management; outreach, diversity, and education; rental and sales of specialized equipment and supplies; core scanning, splitting/slabbing, subsampling, and description; subsample preparation and analysis; maintenance of repositories for stewardship of samples, data, publications, and reference collections; cyberinfrastructure development; physical infrastructure development; and community coordination.Scientific drilling and coring are essential for the advancement of the Earth Sciences. They are the primary means to access fresh, unweathered materials that are not exposed at the surface. Core samples from lakes and other sedimentary basins provide archives of environmental and ecosystem history, allowing reconstruction of the Earth-life system through time to understand system changes and ecosystem response and resilience. Core samples and boreholes provide a means to understand hydrologic, geologic, and geochemical processes operating at depth, through sampling, in-situ measurements, and long-term monitoring. Subsurface microbiological communities may be sampled and analyzed to understand their role in rock weathering, fault mechanics, and other geologic and geochemical processes. Scientific motivations are diverse, including hydrology and fluid transport, geochemistry, geomicrobiology, paleorecords of the Earth-Life system, volcanology and magmatism, tectonics, geothermal, fault mechanics and seismicity, rock weathering, and bolide impacts. Coring and drilling operations that enable this science are often complex, highly technical, expensive, and entail substantial risk, and the equipment, tooling, instrumentation, and data management systems required are specialized. Although requirements vary between projects, the many commonalities allow economies of scale by leveraging shared expertise and resources, even as projects range in depth or cost by a factor of 100,000 or more. The Continental Scientific Drilling (CSD) Facility delivers resources for all of these communities in accordance with their priorities.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.