The Department of Geosciences has been awarded a $650,550 grant from the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Academic Research Infrastructure Program. The award, for the proposal entitled “Renovation for Climate Change and Environmental Quality Laboratory at North Dakota State University,” comes from a $200 million Academic Research Infrastructure (ARI) program allocated to NSF as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. Philip Boudjouk, vice president for research, creative activities and technology transfer, is the principal investigator on the grant. Bernhardt Saini-Eidukat, department chair, led the proposal submission, along with faculty members Adam Lewis, Peter Oduor and Allan Ashworth.

The funds will be used to renovate laboratory space on the main floor of Geosciences Hall, originally known as the Dairy Building, dating back to 1914. The refurbished space will house a shared sedimentology lab used to sort, process and characterize samples critical for the continued work of Lewis and Ashworth, who return from Antarctica yearly with 1,000 to 2,000 pounds of rock and soil samples.

A renovated attached lab space will serve as a microscope lab that Lewis and his students will use to select microscopic crystals from volcanic ash samples for isotopic age dating. The last renovated space will be an experimental chemistry lab run by Oduor for use of sensitive equipment to determine transport rates and flow mechanisms of contaminants through porous media.