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

这项地球科学计划社区设施奖支持大陆科学钻探设施(CSDF)的运营和管理。几种类型的地球科学研究需要分析土壤、岩石、水和地表下的微生物等材料。钻孔还允许在地表下安装仪器，以提高我们对地震过程、地表下水的运动、形成不同矿物并将岩石转变为土壤的过程的了解，或者是利用地热能的最佳方式。随着时间的推移，沉积层在湖泊中沉积，每个沉积层都包含有关湖泊沉积时周围条件的信息。从湖床采集岩心样本可以分析沉积层，以了解在湖泊整个生命周期中，气候、水、生态系统、火山和地球板块运动在靠近湖泊的地区发生了怎样的变化。要到达地表深处的这些材料，需要钻探和岩心取样。这些程序复杂、昂贵，风险可能很高，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，这些项目涉及在湖泊中进行短岩心钻探，以及在水晶岩中进行深度钻探。CSDF的活动包括：项目开发；后勤和承包；实地业务管理；外联、多样性和教育；专业设备和用品的租赁和销售；岩心扫描、分离/切片、分样本和描述；分样本的准备和分析；管理样本、数据、出版物和参考资料的储存库的维护；网络基础设施发展；有形基础设施发展；社区协调。科学钻探和取芯对地球科学的发展至关重要。它们是获取新鲜的、未风化的材料的主要手段，这些材料不会暴露在表面。来自湖泊和其他沉积盆地的岩心样本提供了环境和生态系统历史的档案，使地球生命系统能够随着时间的推移重建，以了解系统变化和生态系统的反应和恢复能力。岩心样品和钻孔提供了一种手段，通过取样、现场测量和长期监测，了解在深处运行的水文、地质和地球化学过程。可以对地下微生物群落进行采样和分析，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、火山学和岩浆作用、构造学、地热、断层力学和地震活动、岩石风化和流星撞击。实现这一科学的取心和钻井操作往往是复杂的、高度技术性的、昂贵的和具有很大风险的，而且所需的设备、工装、仪器和数据管理系统是专门的。尽管不同项目的需求不同，但许多共性通过利用共享的专业知识和资源实现了规模经济，即使项目的深度或成本相差100,000倍或更多。大陆科学钻探(CSD)设施根据所有这些社区的优先事项为他们提供资源。这一奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势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.