Public-Private Partnerships in the Geosciences

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Public-Private Partnerships in the Geosciences
Industry and NSF-GEO
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Promoting Academe and Industry Cooperation
Opportunities

• GOALI Grant Opportunities for Academic Liaison
  with Industry
• Faculty, postdoctoral fellows, and students
• Industrial scientists and engineers to bring
  industry's perspective and integrative skills to
  academe
• Interdisciplinary university-industry teams to
  conduct research projects.
• SBIR The Small Business Innovation Research
  (SBIR) Program

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Promoting Academe and Industry Cooperation
Opportunities

• NSF IODP Funding Shortfall
• Options to Address Shortfall
• Current Potential Options for Off-NSF Contract JR
  Use
• Ocean Drilling Consortium
• An industry-sponsored program that investigates
  three broad themes of industry interest, funded
  by a consortium of energy companies. This program
  would operate several months a year, have
  expeditions stocked by scientists, and would be
  based on proposals written by the scientific
  community. Data policies and publication policies
  are similar to IODP, with the exception of a 2
  year data moratorium.

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Ocean Drilling Consortium Scientific Frontiers
in Deep Water Exploration
Advancing knowledge of the Earth, strengthening
ties with industry scientists, supporting our
international program
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Ocean Drilling Consortium Timeline
Steer comm organized
Proposalworkshop
Proposal submitted
Feedback / revision
Yes / No
2008
2009
June
Sept
May
Phase I - NAtl, GOM
2011
2010
June
Jan
Phase II - NAtl, SAtl
2012
2013
June
Jan
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Promoting Academe and Industry CooperationOpportu
nities

• Industry-NSF Funding Initiatives
• Can we cooperatively fund research?
• Government laws do not allow direct contributions
  to NSFs budget.
• Are there other scenarios that will work?
• NSF is working with a major society developing a
  workable arrangement.
• Participation of industry by in-kind or
  technological support of NSF funded research
• Drilling
• Seismic surveys of drill sites
• Logging support
• Reflection seismic support
• Laboratory usage
• Field support
• Participation in industry sponsored research
• Joint support of research workshops and NRC-like
  studies
• Joint sponsorship of technical sessions

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Promoting Academe and Industry Cooperative
Opportunities

• Support and Participation in NSF STCs
• NCED National Center for Earth-
• surface Dynamics (Anadarko,
• ChevronTexaco, ConocoPhillips,
• ExxonMobil, Japan Oil
• SAHRA Sustainability of semi-Arid
• Hydrology and Riparian Areas
• CMOP Center for Coastal Margin
• Observation and Prediction

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0.9 m
A
Uninterpreted Stratigraphy
0.45 m
A
Industry Ties Development and Testing of
Subsurface Architecture Models

V.E 1.4
sb

• Industry partners help support subsurface
  architecture research through SAFL industry
  consortium
• Stratigraphic models (both experimental and
  numerical) developed by NCED staff provide
  quantitative tests of qualitative models
  developed and frequently used within industry.

sb
B
B
sb
sb
Experimental Stratigraphy created during
experiment in the XES Basin. This experiment was
designed to test the Sequence Stratigraphic Model
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Industry Ties Stratigraphy in Support of
Sustainable Delta Restoration
Sedimentary deposits beneath the present delta
surface provide a long record of how the delta
maintained itself under natural
conditions. NCEDs goal is to learn how the
natural self-maintaining Delta worked in the past
and to harness those processes to help restore
the Delta today.

WesternGeco Multiclient 3D Surveys
Abundance of industry seismic data from the
Delta. 3D Regional Surveys Site Surveys for
Hazards Assessment recently acquired by NCED will
aid construction of Delta Models
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Natural processes in the Mississippi Delta can be
harnessed to rebuild resilient, self-maintaining
delta lobes.   This scenario is absolutely within
reach - despite subsidence and rising sea level.
The Wax Lake Delta Lobe shown in the small box on
the far left of the above illustration has
developed since Mississippi river water and
sediments were naturally and permanently diverted
into the Atchafalaya River drainage during the
1973 flood.  The two larger boxes on the right of
the above illustration depict two hypothetical
delta lobes created by deliberate anthropogenic
Mississippi river diversions directly south of
New Orleans.  These lobes could naturally rebuild
both inundated wetlands and delta plain, and
provide protection to New Orleans from hurricane
surges.  This project will require the
coordination of agencies of federal, state and
local governments, and industry under the
guidance of the engineers and scientists at NSF's
National Center for Earth-surface Dynamics.       
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Industry Ties Integrated Sediment Budget and
Routing Model for Restoration of the Le Sueur
River
Lake Superior

Minnesota River Basin
Project Goals Restoration in a watershed context
Quantifying sediment sources Tracking sediment
pathways Determining optimal locations for BMPs
Mississippi River
Le Sueur Watershed
Stream restoration industry needs improved tools
to source and track sediments and constrain
natural background erosion rates.
External Collaborators Minnesota Pollution
Control Agency US Geological Survey Barr
Engineering Co.
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Perched on the banks of the Mississippi Rivers
St. Anthony Falls, the Outdoor StreamLab Has
been uniquely designed to study interactions
among a channel, its floodplain, and vegetation.
The facility can produce a large range of flow
rates, including overbank floods. Dams and
bridge Piers placed within the Outdoor StreamLab
allow study of dynamic human-river interactions.
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Promoting Academe and Industry Cooperative
Opportunities in Education

• Low-hanging fruit
• Internships/fellowships for undergrads/grad
  students
• Marketing geoscience career opportunities
• Sponsoring teacher professional development
• Sustaining successful NSF-initiated programs
• More ambitious
• Advocating for greater inclusion of geoscience
  content in the high school curriculum
• Including or expanding geoscience content in
  broader STEM education reform activities (e.g.,
  America COMPETES Act NSTAs Building a Presence)

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New Jersey Geoscience Scholars (Alex Gates,
Rutgers)

• Reform of Newark Public Schools Earth Science
  curriculum and a suite of extracurricular
  activities to encourage students to pursue
  college degrees in geoscience
• Collaborators
• Rutgers
• Newark Museum
• Meadowlands Environmental Research Institute
• Langan Engineering
• Environmental Services Corporation
• URS Corporation
• Contributors
• ExxonMobil Foundation 25,000

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Paleoclimate Flooding History in the So. San
Joaquin Valley, CA (Dirk Baron, CSUB)

• Earth Science summer research program for high
  school teachers students and undergraduate
  students that is focused on locally-relevant
  paleoclimate and flooding issues.
• Collaborators
• Cal State Univ Bakersfield
• Bakersfield City School District
• Kern County
• Contributors
• Chevron donated 1 million to sustain and expand
  program

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Africa Array (Andy Nyblade, PSU)

• AfricaArray is an initiative to promote coupled
  geophysics training and research programs for
  undergrad graduate students post-docs, to
  build and maintain a scientific workforce for
  Africas natural resource sector.
• Collaborators (12 partners)
• Penn State Univ
• Univ Witwatersrand
• Council for Geoscience (SA)
• IRIS
• North Carolina AT Univ
• Contributors
• Many oil mining companies interested in
  providing support

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Promoting Academe and Industry CooperationWhat
are the Needs?

• - NSF lacks a policy statement or position on
  public/private sector interaction.
• There is no organized discourse and cooperation.
• Need to shed the subtle mindset that if industry
  is involved, NSF should not be, and vice versa.
• Needs to be a more balanced focus within solid
  Earth geosciences at NSF.
• Historically, EAR resources and activities have
  focused on deep Earth research (mantle and core).
• More recent, environmental concerns have
  strengthened a focus on surface Earth research.
• Very little focus on the Earths sedimentary
  crust where one might expect major private-public
  sector interaction.

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Promoting Academe and Industry CooperationWhat
are the Difficulties?

• Industry and governments constant refocus and
  reorganization
• Industry propriety nature and no organized way of
  releasing information once it becomes
  non-proprietary.

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What Role can Societies Play

• Act as the link between the three poles-industry,
  academe, and government agencies.
• Promote joint sponsorship of workshops, major
  conferences, NRC studies, workforce issues
• Numeric modeling of carbonate platforms
• Deep time paleoclimate NRC study
• Educational issues
• Joint sponsorship of technical sessions at AAPG,
  SEPM, GSA, AGU, etc.

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THE END