NSF Org:	RISE Div of Res, Innovation, Synergies, & Edu
Recipient:	UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN
Initial Amendment Date:	August 8, 2023
Latest Amendment Date:	August 8, 2023
Award Number:	2324786
Award Instrument:	Standard Grant
Program Manager:	Raleigh Martin ramartin@nsf.gov  (703)292-7199 RISE  Div of Res, Innovation, Synergies, & Edu GEO  Directorate For Geosciences
Start Date:	September 1, 2023
End Date:	August 31, 2026 (Estimated)
Total Intended Award Amount:	$1,175,780.00
Total Awarded Amount to Date:	$1,175,780.00
Funds Obligated to Date:	FY 2023 = $1,175,780.00
History of Investigator:	Masa Prodanovic (Principal Investigator) masha@utexas.edu Maria Esteva (Co-Principal Investigator) Richard Ketcham (Co-Principal Investigator)
Recipient Sponsored Research Office:	University of Texas at Austin 110 INNER CAMPUS DR AUSTIN TX  US  78712-1139 (512)471-6424
Sponsor Congressional District:	25
Primary Place of Performance:	University of Texas at Austin 110 INNER CAMPUS DR AUSTIN TX  US  78712-1139
Primary Place of Performance Congressional District:	25
Unique Entity Identifier (UEI):	V6AFQPN18437
Parent UEI:
NSF Program(s):	Special Initiatives, GEO CI - GEO Cyberinfrastrctre
Primary Program Source:	01002324DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT
Program Reference Code(s):
Program Element Code(s):	164200, 243Y00
Award Agency Code:	4900
Fund Agency Code:	4900
Assistance Listing Number(s):	47.041, 47.050

ABSTRACT

The climate crisis and its human impact have created an urgent need to curate and analyze a wide range of geosciences data. Characterizing geomaterials in terms of their microstructural and transport properties is crucial for Earth system understanding and for sustainable resource management. The structure and composition of soil play a foundational role in plant, microbial, and agricultural ecosystems. Deeper below the soil, rock microstructure and mineral heterogeneity are critical to understanding fluid/solid reactions to improve groundwater resources management, carbon sequestration, rare-earth mineral recovery, and contaminant transport. Modern 3D imaging provides a window to the microstructure of soil and rocks; recent advances in machine learning and simulation can improve our understanding of how these materials influence the world around us. A wealth of volumetric datasets of geomaterials at different length scales are available, but most are not broadly accessible due to gaps in the infrastructure required to curate and analyze them. As computational and data workflows become increasingly complex, there is a clear need to develop and maintain reproducible and scalable open science infrastructure to support scientific communities.

This project will create cloud-based open science tools for curation and analysis of geomaterial image data. The benefits will reach geoscientists as well as a wide-ranging community of scientists working on diverse porous materials. Developed modules will be directly applicable to materials science (solid foams), chemical engineering (fuel cells, electrodes), and medicine (bones, cell biology, micro-vascular networks). The tool suite will be deployed with corresponding training and educational materials through a repository, Digital Rocks Portal (DRP), which has curated data available for reuse. Resources will be open and modular so users can adapt and implement them in diverse computing environments. Analysis workflows will be tested using image data across multiple scales from an ocean drilling project (NSF award 2140397). Use cases will be redistributed among the wide community of users of the NSF-sponsored University of Texas High-Resolution X-ray Computed Tomography facility (UTCT). Students and researchers working on this project will be exposed to interdisciplinary work combining geology, engineering, data curation and computer science. The DRP will continue to be used in courses at multiple universities, and the tools created will be published with digital object identifiers (DOIs) and presented at conferences and training events.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

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