Continued Curation of the Marine Geology and Geophysics Collection in the OSU/CEOAS Marine and Geology Repository

This project supports the operation of the Marine and Geology Repository at Oregon State University. The collection includes more than 25,000 sediment cores, rocks, deep sea nodules, and sediment trap samples. Samples from the collection are distributed to scientists, educators, and museums throughout the United States and around the world. Broader impacts include internships for undergraduate students and educational programs and tours targeting a wide age range (K-12, undergraduate, graduate, public). The College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences at Oregon State University established the Marine and Geology Repository (OSU-MGR) in 1971 as an NSF-sponsored community facility. This project supports NSF’s Marine Geology Collection consisting of approximately 16,000 m of marine sediments from almost 7000 cores, 15,500 rock samples from almost 600 dredges, 570 rock samples from 61 dives (Alvin, ROV), 528 deep-sea manganese nodules, and 1650 sediment trap samples. Through high quality archiving of rocks and sediment under continuous refrigeration, these one-of-a-kind materials are preserved for the scientific community. For more than 50 years the mission of the OSU-MGR has remained, to archive and distribute geological samples and associated meta data, predominantly sediment cores, rocks, nodules and sediment trap samples, for scientific research and education. Over the past 30 years, more than 190,000 samples have been distributed to scientists, educators, and museums throughout the United States and around the world. 33% of these are from cores/dredges that are more than 5 years old and 75% go to non-OSU investigators. With more than 32,500 samples taken over the last 7 years the demand remains high. Long-term goals include: 1) To continue to improve services to the community, including virtual capabilities, data acquisition, and remote sampling. 2) To collect, capture, and serve non-destructive data from both shipboard and repository sources. 3) Support teaching, training, and learning through use of the OSU-MGR repository in graduate, undergraduate, K-12 classes, REU programs, summer schools, and employing undergraduate student workers, as well as by opening the facility to the public for tours, open houses, and presentations. Products will be disseminated through the OSU-MGR website and national databases. The online data repository will be made FAIR—Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reproducible—by linking data to unique identifiers including DOI, ORCID, IGSN, and R2R Expedition IDs. 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.