This award will provide funding for the renovation of a portion of the research space of the Department of Geology of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Funding of this renovation will provide substantially improved facilities for an active group of faculty who have shown the capacity to effectively use available resources. The space is located in the Natural History Building, which was built in 1892. Most of the space has not been significantly renovated since the 1950's or early 1960's and is presently unsuited for modern research purposes. The space to be renovated is devoted almost entirely to research and associated research training. It includes laboratories for sedimentary petrology, paleontology, stable isotope geochemistry, radiogenic isotope and trace element geochemistry, engineering geology, experimental mineralogy and petrology, and rock sample preparation. Renovation of this space will provide 10 of the 19 faculty members of the Department with new or substantially improved research facilities and will significantly increase their research capacity.
