DUSEL S-1 GEOSCIENCE-BIOLOGY-ENGINEERING WORKSHOP
November 12-13, 2004
Balcksburg, VA

Purpose:
The goal of this workshop is to reach consensus among the earth sciences, biological, and engineering communities on a list of high priority experiments for DUSEL, both generic and site specific; on a modular structure for these experiments (which can serve a multiuser/multidisciplinary purpose); and on the infrastructure requirements for the modules and experiments. The results of the workshop will be published in a document prepared by the Working Group leaders and Solicitation 1 PIs for distribution to the DUSEL community. These steps are viewed as prerequisites for the general DUSEL meeting to be held in Boulder, Colorado, in January.

Presentations:
We invite the participants to submit 300-word abstracts prior to the workshop, summarizing the kind of investigation they propose doing at a DUSEL facility. The investigations can be for specific or generic subsurface environments; they can be for short-term characterization projects or long-term, multi-year experiments; they can take place synchronous with or after the construction of DUSEL. All should emphasize the necessity of a DUSEL to carry them out. The best experiments are the ones that

• cannot be performed otherwise but at a deep underground facility;
  
• address fundamental questions in the fields of microbiology, molecular biology and evolution, hydrology, petrology, geochemistry, geophysics, structural geology, rock mechanics and engineering;
• simultaneously address fundamental questions in more than one of the above field (i.e., examine coupled processes).

With these criteria in mind, Solicitation 1 PIs  and working group leaders will  group the contributions according to their themes and general compatibility with the working subcommittees established at the Berkeley conference. While all submissions are invited to present at a poster session on the first day of the workshop, noteworthy contributions will be scheduled for oral presentations on the second day (10 minutes plus 5 minutes for discussion, depending upon schedule).

Abstracts are due on October 31st and should be submitted online at the Abstract Submission page of the workshop website. They will be automatically posted, and thus made immediately available to everyone. The abstracts will be included in the technical records of the Solicitation 1 study.

In addition, the Solicitation 1 PIs are inviting one representative of each candidate site to give a presentation on the biogeohydrological environment and the physical aspects of their sites. (The Solicitation 1 PIs have also invited speakers to summarize the geoscience, geomicrobiological, and engineering activities of existing underground laboratories in other countries, to report on the Secure Earth initiative, and to present earth sciences education and outreach possibilities at DUSEL.) The invited speakers will be asked to provide their talks in PowerPoint prior to the meeting, so that their presentations can be viewed beforehand  on the workshop website.