Operation SWAB: Monitoring of Ship, Van, and Laboratory 14C and 3H Contamination

This proposal requests 5-years of support for the SWAB program. The SWAB program has been successful for over 35-years in keeping tritium (3H) and radiocarbon (14C) contamination on ships, associated vans and laboratories to a minimum. The University of Miami proposes to continue testing platforms of the Academic Research Fleet (ARF), particularly those involved in measuring natural abundances of 14C and 3H as part of global ocean programs such as CLIVAR and GEOTRACES, GOSHIPS etc.

Broader Impacts:

The principal impact of the present proposal is under criterion two (NSF 19-602), providing infrastructure support for scientists to use the vessel and its shared-use instrumentation in support of their NSF-funded oceanographic research projects (which individually undergo separate review by the relevant research program of NSF).

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.