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。该奖项资助伍兹霍尔海洋研究所海底样本实验室对海洋海底样本的管理、储存和分发。这个储存库中的样本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。这个储藏库每年向美国和国际科学家分发大约8000份海底物质样本，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。来自该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。该奖项增加了伍兹霍尔海洋研究所的一项重大投资，为那些有兴趣研究或展示收集样本的人提供了样品管理和分发的财政支持。储存库的工作人员维护收集，将新材料纳入收集，收集和验证提交的样本信息，并将这些数据和元数据输入在线数据库，使感兴趣的各方可以通过互联网看到这些收集，以便科学家和教育工作者可以找到并索取用于研究和教育的样本。除了该设施的继续运作外，这笔资金还为工作人员提供资源，使他们能够用独特的标识符对样品进行编目，这些标识符可用于将不同实验室和研究人员的出版物中的样品和分析联系起来。这项工作的更广泛影响包括通过参观中小学校团体、当地社区组织和其他有关方面进行公众宣传。该奖项还为海洋地质基础设施的一个重要组成部分提供了支持，该基础设施提高了以高昂成本收集的高科学价值材料的再利用。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。

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.