The Department of Geological Sciences at Northwestern University requests funding from NSF to pay for 45% of the cost of upgrading their computer system. The remaining 55% will be contributed by Northwestern University. The computer system will be use primarily for research in global plate motions, display and analysis of large data sets for digital topography, marine magnetics and satellite altimetry, physics of the earth's deep interior, subduction zone dynamics, and the evolution of divergent plate boundaries. The proposed upgrade, consisting of a fileserver and two graphics workstations, will be an asset in these areas of research because of the much faster turnaround time in numerical processing and the greatly enhanced modeling capabilities of the new graphics system.
