Renewal to OCE-1558374: WHOI Sea Floor Samples Laboratory: Curation and distribution of samples from the sea floor in the service of marine science and education

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海洋科学考察花费巨资收集的宝贵科学资源。一些样品来自浅海、近岸环境，具有不寻常和短暂的特征，另一些样品来自大洋中脊、海山、深海平原、火山岛根部和大陆架。许多样品来自海洋表面以下数英里难以到达的地方，并通过专门的机器人车辆、载人潜水器、取芯装置和/或岩石挖掘机从海底取回。为了保存这些宝贵的样本，并将其提供给其他科学家进行最初收集者没有想到的研究，国家科学基金会海洋科学司海洋地质学和地球物理学计划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。该奖项资助伍兹霍尔海洋研究所海底样品实验室管理、储存和分发海底样品。该储存库中的样本可应要求分发给希望更好地了解海洋盆地和大陆架、其资源分布以及地球如何运作的科学家和教育工作者。该储存库每年向美国和国际科学家分发大约8000份海底材料样本，以提高我们对海底，海洋地壳，地幔，海底火山活动以及海洋化学和地球气候历史的认识。来自该储存库的样品已被用于开拓新的分析技术，并提供了对海底、大陆边和海底下岩浆过程的重要见解。该奖项增加了伍兹霍尔海洋学研究所的重大投资，为那些有兴趣研究或展示样本的人提供样本的管理和分发资金支持。存放处工作人员负责维护收藏品，将新材料纳入收藏品，收集和核实提交的样本信息，并将这些数据和元数据输入在线数据库，使感兴趣的各方能够通过互联网看到收藏品，以便科学家和教育工作者能够找到并索取样本用于研究和教育。除了该设施的持续运作外，这笔资金还为工作人员提供资源，以使用独特的标识符对样本进行编目，这些标识符可用于将不同实验室和研究人员的样本和分析结果与出版物联系起来。这项工作的更广泛影响包括通过为小学和中学团体、地方社区组织和其他有关各方举办的图尔斯参观活动向公众宣传。该奖项还为海洋地质基础设施的一个重要组成部分提供支持，该基础设施提高了以高昂代价收集的具有高科学价值的材料的再利用。该奖项反映了NSF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。

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 Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution's Sea Floor Samples Laboratory. Samples in this repository are distributed upon request to scientists and educators wishing to better understand the ocean basins and continental shelves, the distribution of their resources, and how the Earth works. This repository distributes approximately 8000 samples of seafloor material per year 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 this repository have been used to pioneer new analytical techniques and provide important insights into seafloor, continental margin, and sub-seafloor magmatic processes. This award augments a significant investment by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution by providing financial support for the curation and distribution of samples to those interested in studying or exhibiting samples from the collection. The repository staff maintains the collection, ingests new material into the collection, collects and verifies submitted information on samples and enters these data and metadata into an online database making the collection visible to interested parties via the Internet so scientists and educators can find and request samples for research and education. In addition to the continued operation of the facility, this funding provides resources for staff to catalog samples with unique identifiers that can be used to link samples and analyses across publications by different laboratories and investigators. Broader impacts of the work include 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 that enhances the reuse of material of high scientific value that is collected at great expense.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.