9310551 Eckelbarger The Darling Marine Center is the marine laboratory of the University of Maine System. Strategically located on the Gulf of Maine, the Center offers unparalleled research and teaching opportunities for resident and visiting faculty and students who require ready access to a wide variety of inshore and subtidal habitats including salt marshes, beaches, seagrass beds, soft bottoms of all grain size types, and rocky hard bottoms. Over the last two years, the University has made an unprecedented financial commitment to modernize the facility and to expand teaching and research programs to benefit both University and visiting faculty and researchers. During 1992, additional lab and office space was created for visiting scientists, two-thirds of the existing buildings were renovated or improved, visitor housing was increased by 65%, a new dining wall was built, a shoreside Dive & Field Staging Building was constructed, a small wet classroom was created, a new boat was added to the research fleet, and the research library was expanded. In 1993, the number of summer courses and workshops offered will be doubled over 1992 and a unique Marine Biodiversity Program will be inaugurated to begin building a biological database. In the fall 1993, a newly created "Semester-by-the-Sea" program will be initiated for UM undergraduates. Because the Center has experienced an abrupt upturn in use by resident and visiting faculty, the University requests funds to construct a small shoreside Visiting Investigator Lab/Classroom building to help reduce crowding and to efficiently consolidate all teaching and visiting investigator activities near the waterfront. The building would contain: 1) day lab/office space for summer visitors that can be converted to a classroom during the academic year, 2) a running seawater lab, 3) a small voucher specimen museum, and 4) a chemical/radioactive tracer lab. ***
