McCone Hall, the Earth Sciences Building, located on the campus of the University of California, Berkeley, was designed to house three departments: Geography, Geology and Geophysics, and Paleontology. Sharing the facility with the departments are the Earth Sciences Library, the Seismographic Stations and the Museum of Paleontology, an organized research unit. With the explosive growth in the scale and sophistication of experimental and analytical research in the Earth sciences, the adaptive capacity of the allotted space has become inadequate. There were no facilities initially designed for isotope work that require vital clean rooms for sample preparation, or dedicated space for experimental work involving apparatus operating at high temperatures and pressures designed to replicate the conditions within the Earth. Analytical facilities necessary to determine the composition of rocks, minerals and fluids lack sufficient space. Rock crushing and pulverizing rooms are inadequate and contribute to a major dust problem making it difficult to reduce contamination. Nevertheless, the faculty continues to be productive in an unfavorable environment. Funding from the Academic Research Infrastructure Program will assist the University in its efforts to renovate and consolidate research facilities for the Department of Geology and Geophysics, and the seismographic stations. The facilities' modernization project is an integral step in a larger plan of enhancing academic excellence in Earth Sciences at Berkeley. While supporting Earth scientists taking an active role in addressing urgent societal needs, the department is in the process of establishing an improved background base for rigorously gauging the effect of human occupation of the planet through its environmental research program. Research laboratories where work on mineral physics and advance materials, seismic and geological hazards, global changing spanning a broad range of geological causes, effects and time scales, and interrogation of the record of Earth processes retained in rocks using a wide range of micro-analytical techniques will be renovated. The department has been a leading force in these domains, as exemplified by pioneering research on the catastrophic efforts of comet impacts, effects of mountain uplift, landscape response, the development of non-renewable resources, and acid rain generation. The renovation project will benefit 17 faculty, 20 post doctoral fellows, 46 graduate students, and 38 undergraduates, providing them with a modernized facility to continue their pursuit of academic excellence in Earth science.
