This grant provides partial support for the costs of acquiring a ground penetrating radar(GPR)system for near-surface geophysical surveys as a part of research programs in the Department of Geosciences and other departments and programs at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. The PI's, Dan Davis and Bill Holt, are associate professors in the Department of Geosciences whose geological and geophysical research includes stratigraphic and structural studies of the Glaciotectonically deformed morainal deposits of Long Island. Additional SUNY users of the GPR will include Henry Bokuniewicz and his colleagues at SUNY Stony Brook's Marine Science Research Center.
The acquisition of a GPR system at Stony Brook will allow imaging of layered sediments in dry, porous glacial sediments, including those of Long Island. This will make it possible to extrapolate observed stratigraphy away from boreholes and excavations and thereby to address a wide range of theoretical and practical questions related to their depositional and deformational history and how that affects their hydrology. The PI's and their students will be the primary users of the GPR system, but it will provide a valuable additional tool for a wide range of ongoing research efforts at Stony Brook. In this way, it will allow the enhancement of the collaborations between the SUNY geophysics group, the Long Island Groundwater Research Institute, local water authorities, and the SUNY Marine Science Research Center. ***