• Table of Contents
• Project Summary
• Entire Plan (2.5 MB pdf)
  
  
  
  
  
  

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EarthLab is an initiative to build a laboratory in the deep subsurface to study the biological, geomechanical, hydrological, and geochemical processes that modify Earth from its surface to the limit of habitable depths. The EarthLab facility will consist of multiple specialty laboratories for specifi c subterranean experiments as well as multiple observatories for monitoring active processes and collecting critical data. These laboratories and observatories will expand our knowledge of Earth’s subsurface by permitting direct studies from within. We currently have only limited direct observations within the deep subsurface of microbes that precipitate and dissolve minerals and generate gas, migrating fl uids that weaken earthquake-generating faults and change rock compositions, and stress and strain that cause rock to deform slowly and break suddenly. Furthermore, biogeochemical processes, groundwater fl ow, rock-water interaction, and rock deformation are all coupled in complex ways. A more comprehensive understanding of this coupling is critical to interdisciplinary research ranging from earthquake engineering to bioremediation to exploration for new groundwater resources. The large number and wide variety of scientists that will focus on these problems will help EarthLab achieve its goals.

To carry out the needed experiments, and to observe changes over the long term, EarthLab requires a large-scale underground excavation where drilling, coring, and tunneling can access a variety of structural, hydrological, biological, and geochemical environments. EarthLab’s underground operations should encompass a crustal volume of tens of cubic kilometers and should extend to several kilometers depth to permit studies of how these complex phenomena scale with distance, depth, and time. Such a facility will be a unique resource for multidisciplinary and multi-institutional investigations for the international geological and biological science and engineering communities.

In addition to pursuing its primary research agenda, EarthLab will also seek to develop partnerships with the bioremediation, biotechnology, and pharmaceutical industries to develop practical applications of its subsurface biosphere research. Other potential industry applications include developing new geophysical and geochemical tools for characterizing the subsurface and new geological mapping, rock drilling, and other engineering technologies for subsurface exploration and construction. By partnering with NASA, these new technologies could also be adapted to explore for subsurface life within our solar system.

An important part of EarthLab’s plan, which crosses all basic scientifi c and engineering disciplines, is to support a very active program to educate and train future generations of scientists and teachers from pre-college to postgraduate, focusing on underrepresented groups.

The EarthLab concept and goals are a result of many discussions between the physics and Earth science communities, including those held at a joint conference, “Neutrinos and Subterranean Science 2002,” or NeSS 2002, held in Washington, D.C. in September, 2002. The physics community has long expressed the need for a deep subsurface laboratory to house new experiments in nuclear, particle, and astrophysics, and new detector technologies that require a deep subterranean site. EarthLab’s activities will be closely linked and integrated with those of the physics community and with other regional academic centers to take full advantage of shared technological infrastructure, research expertise, and education and outreach capabilities.

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