This award provides 64% of the funds needed to acquire equipment for a fluid dynamics laboratory system that will be installed, operated and maintained in the Department of Geology at the Graduate School of Oceanography of Rhode Island University. The institution is committed to providing the remaining funds required for this equipment purchase. The development of plate tectonics, coupled with advances in understanding of seafloor geological processes and the geochemistry and geophysics of the underlying mantle, has led to the view that the solid earth is a system in active circulation. The equipment to be installed in the fluid dynamics lab will be used, in conjunction with theory, to test various models of crust and mantle dynamic flow.
