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Construction officially commenced on a building that will house UT's Institute for Geophysics and the Texas Advanced Computing Center Thursday evening at the J.J. Pickle Research Campus in northwest Austin.
"I want to make sure everyone can see me, so that I'll see you," the project photographer said from the top of the ladder as he craned his camera down over the 50 people who had worked on the technical side of the construction. FlintCo, the construction company, was in the process of photographing everyone involved from the keynote speakers to staff of the University's new Jackson School for Geosciences. Some of the staff put on hard hats and stood in front of a 20-foot patch of dirt with 10 shovels.
The Institute for Geophysics, a division of the Jackson school, studies the structure and movement of the Earth's crust and sediment, earthquakes, past and future climate conditions.
"Geophysical research is fundamental. It allows us to look beneath the interior of the Earth, below the ocean floor," said Paul Stoffa, director of the geophysics institute. He explained that while the research is sometimes conducted for the sake of better understanding the processes that the earth goes through and is "not designed specifically" to detect and develop natural resources such as oil, but it can have implications for that.
Geophysical techniques can improve oil detection - sponsors of the geological institute range from British Petroleum to Shell. Other projects currently under the geophysical institute's purview include a study of moonquakes and using radars to sense what is beneath ice, especially relevant on Mars and Jupiter's moons.
Stoffa said that the link physical link to TACC will strengthen the quality of research that is done at the institute. "Geophysics relies very heavily on computer capabilities," he said.
The purpose of TACC is to improve research and education programs through superior computing capabilities. Currently TACC has been expanding rapidly in the past four years; its staff has gone from 14 to 60.
"The most challenging problems in science today require super-computing technology," said TACC Director Jay Boisseau.
The new geophysics building will be linked to the current economic geology building at the PRC.
"There is still room to grow at the Pickle Research Campus," said Patricia Clubb, vice president at the office for employee and campus service of campus planning. "It is going to become a popular choice for expansion."
The PRC encompasses 475 acres and houses everything from a fully functional nuclear reactor to the Robotics Research Group. Juan Sanchez, vice president for research , explained that of the annual $400 million the University receives, one-third of it goes to PRC. He said he expects that the Jackson school, which at $232 million has the biggest endowment in UT history, will have "a tremendous impact" on science research at the University.
The new building is expected to open September 2006.
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