(The Antarctic Research Facility Building)

The Antarctic Research Facility is a national repository for geological materials collected in polar regions. It is supported by an operational grant from the National Science Foundation, Office of Polar Programs ( Grant Number 0338192). The Facility houses over 20,000 meters of deep-sea core sediment and over 5,000 kg of dredge, trawl, and grab samples, the largest such Southern Ocean collection in the world. These materials have been acquired from over 90 USAP research vessel cruises. The Facility also houses and curates nearly 3,000 meters of rotary cored geological material acquired by NSF supported drilling programs in the Antarctic. Replacement cost of this core inventory in terms of ship and ice-based drilling is conservatively estimated to be in the range of $150 to $200M.

This web site is primarily for users of the Antarctic Research Facility and its deep-sea core and drill core collection.