MRI: Acquisition of a Leading-edge Portable Geoprobe System with Subsurface Sampling, Logging and Imaging capabilities for Geoscience Research and Education

收购具有直推式(DP)土壤、沉积物和地下水采样工具以及测井和成像能力的GeoProbe 7822DT系统将服务于TAMU-CC和南得克萨斯州的研究和教育需求。墨西哥湾沿岸自然资源(即区域石油/天然气以及商业和休闲渔业)紧密结合的地方和区域经济相互作用增加了繁荣，并导致南得克萨斯州的工业和人口增长。这伴随着对已经有限的地下水资源受到污染的担忧，以及对生态系统和环境健康的问题。GeoProbe是行业基准设备，可提高研究人员适应不断变化的研究问题的能力，无论这些问题集中在环境、岩土或勘探工作上。新的移动、占地面积小的GeoProbe系统具有各种工具和成像功能，能够获得浅层地下土壤和岩石的高分辨率地质、水文地质和地球化学信息。例如，了解沉积物类型、含水率和电导率的垂直变化，以及储存在地下的水的高分辨率化学组成，有助于确定突出的水和污染物迁移路径，并确定需要注意的区域。GeoProbe系统将为该地区的学生提供必要的实践经验和实践培训，使他们在就业市场上具有竞争力。这一领先的GeoProbe系统包括用于井/压力计安装和取心的DP钻井功能、离散的无菌水和沉积物采样，以及用于地层渗透率、岩性和含水率的DP测绘仪器。这一GeoProbe系统将补充TAMUCC和其他南得克萨斯州学术机构的研究人员(教职员工和学生)所做的努力，使用超高性能的化学和生物分析仪器，提高他们在各种环境中获取离散和无菌样品的能力。使用GeoProbe 7822DT配合辅助取心、无菌取样、探测和录井工具获得高质量和高分辨率的野外数据有许多好处，其中包括：了解控制流动和溶质迁移的详细微观地层学；提供可以根据其确定准确的物理、微生物和化学性质的样本；现场确定污染物的质量分布和分配，特别是在高度不均匀的底质中，从而能够毫不含糊地准确描述任何地球地层的储水量和孔结构特征。这些高分辨率深度剖面物理特征将促进对污染物从土壤到地下水再到地表水的迁移和迁移以及地下水-地表水/海水过渡带内长期化学循环的科学理解。在TAMUCC所在地区，关于家庭、农业和工业用途的土壤和地下水中人为化学物质的存在、去向和影响的研究很少。内部的地球探测器将极大地提高TAMU-CC的研究人员和该区域内的研究人员的能力，从而对环境研究采取综合的整体方法。从这些能力获得的数据是不同STEM领域的科学研究的基础，如地质学、生物地球化学和工程学。通过用拟议的GeoProbe系统补充现有的化学表征能力，可以在这个拉美裔服务机构(HSI)进行的研究范围将得到扩大。该奖项反映了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。

The acquisition of a Geoprobe 7822DT system with direct-push (DP) soil, sediment, and groundwater sampling tools and logging and imaging capabilities will serve the research and educational needs of TAMU-CC and South Texas. The tightly coupled local and regional economic interplay of the Gulf Coast's natural resources (i.e., regional oil/gas and commercial and recreational fishing industries) has increased prosperity and resulted in industry and population growth in South Texas. This comes with concerns over contamination of the already limited groundwater resources and questions about ecosystem and environmental health. The geoprobe is the industry benchmark equipment that improves the investigator's capacity to adapt to changing research problems, whether they are focused on environmental, geotechnical, or exploration work. The new mobile, small footprint geoprobe systems, accommodating a variety of tooling and imaging capabilities, offer capabilities for obtaining high-resolution geologic, hydrogeologic and geochemical information of the shallow subsurface soils and rocks. An understanding of vertical changes in sediment types, water content, and conductivity, and the high-resolution chemical makeup of water stored in the ground, helps determine prominent water and pollutant migration pathways and locate areas that need attention for remediation purposes, for instance. The geoprobe system will provide students in the region, with a large majority from underrepresented minority groups in STEM fields, with hands-on experience and practical training necessary to make them competitive in the job market. This leading-edge geoprobe system includes DP drilling capabilities for well/piezometer installation and coring, discrete aseptic water and sediment sampling, and DP mapping instrumentation for formation permeability, lithology, and water content. This geoprobe system will complement the efforts by researchers (faculty and students) at TAMUCC, and other South Texas academic institutions, using ultrahigh performance chemical and biological analytical instrumentation, by increasing their capability to obtain discrete and aseptic samples in a variety of environments. There are many benefits to obtaining high-quality and high-resolution field data using the Geoprobe 7822DT with auxiliary coring, aseptic sampling, probing and logging tools, including among others: an understanding of the detailed microstratigraphy that controls flow and solute migration; the provision of samples from which accurate physical, microbial and chemical properties can be determined; an in situ determination of contaminant mass distributions and partitioning, particularly within highly heterogeneous substrates and enabling unambiguous and precise characterization of the water storage and pore structure characteristics of any earth formations. These high-resolution depth profile physical characterizations will lead to advances in the scientific understanding of mobilization and transport of contaminants from soils to groundwater to surface water and the long-term chemical cycling within the groundwater-surface water/seawater transition zone. In TAMUCC's region, there has been sparse research on the presence, fate and impacts of anthropogenic chemicals in the soil and groundwater from domestic, agricultural, and industrial uses. An in-house Geoprobe will drastically enhance the capabilities of both researchers at TAMU-CC and those within the region leading to integrated holistic approaches to environmental research. Data obtained from these capabilities is foundational for scientific research in different STEM fields such as geology, biogeochemistry, and engineering. By supplementing the existing chemical characterization capabilities with the proposed Geoprobe System, the scope of research that can be conducted at this Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI) will be expanded.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.