A $1 million donation from Chevron will support core research facilities at the Bureau of Economic Geology, one of the largest research units on campus.
Scientists study materials of geological cuttings at the bureau, which is also the research facility for the Jackson School of Geosciences.
“This particular gift will contribute to the infrastructure and operations of the bureau, allowing the collections to remain publicly available,” said school spokesman J.B. Bird. “Through donations of cores and cuttings by groups such as Chevron, the bureau has amassed the largest publicly available collection of cores and cuttings in the U.S.”
The gift came after Chevron’s $1.2 million donation to UT last year. In 2007, Chevron gave the bureau $3 million in core materials and support.
“Chevron’s gift is extremely generous because it’s hard for these libraries to maintain their collections,” Bird said. “This will allow collections to remain publicly available to students who use core facilities for dissertations and master’s theses.”
The rocks are useful in discovering new energy resources and looking at global climate change.
“The rocks tell a different story about each generation,” Bird said. “Today, the Barnett Shale is the hottest geology formation in the United States because it’s generating an enormous natural gas field. Rocks are a way to discover new energy sources.”
