You can read our announcement here.
A. The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) has made an award responding to solicitation NSF 23-623: Competition for the Management of Operation and Maintenance of the National Geophysical Facility. The award is for the period October 1, 2025 to September 30, 2030. The total award amount is $222,665,172 over the period of performance.
A. The NSF NGF award is funded based on the original solicitation (NSF 23-623) with no major changes to either the scope or the budget of the facility. The overall level of support is similar to the combined NSF SAGE and NSF GAGE facilities that it replaces. The NGF includes a gradual reduction in strainmeter capabilities over the award period, but also new support for enhanced capabilities in sea-floor geodesy, near-surface geophysics, cloud computing, sensor network operations, and new community training opportunities. Highly used capabilities such as the portable instrument pool, the global seismic and geodetic networks, the Network of the Americas, real-time data and data products, short courses, technical training, and internship programs all continue in the NGF.
Specific services and scope funded in the NSF NGF award include:
A. Core NSF NGF capabilities including (but not limited to) portable instrumentation loan, engineering support for PI experiments, operations of persistent geophysical networks, and a broad portfolio of teaching and training resources all continue into the NSF NGF. New capabilities such as enhanced support for near-surface geophysics and cloud-native data products and analysis tools will be released for community use throughout the award period. In some cases, these capabilities are already available.
A. EarthScope Consortium’s proposal for the operations of the NSF NGF was built on our strong foundation of community engagement in the facility. The NSF NGF will be run by and for the geophysics community. Formally, this means that the NSF NGF will have advisory committees, populated by volunteers from the broad scientific community, in a similar fashion to those that currently advise the NSF SAGE and NSF GAGE facilities. There are many opportunities to provide input into facility operations, from serving on or communicating with these committees to engaging with EarthScope Staff running the facilities. Please use the NSF NGF to do great science, tell us what you need to be successful and how we can continuously improve, and consider serving on an advisory committee, working group, or event organizing committee.
A. Good question! The NSF NGF is the NSF’s facility that provides designated national capabilities in support of geophysics research and teaching. It is supported by federal dollars through the NSF, and it has terms, conditions, and oversight provided by the National Science Foundation. EarthScope Consortium is a private non-profit, university-governed consortium that operates this facility, and also delivers other scope through separate grants, awards, and contracts.
A. Please get involved as we implement EarthScope’s operation of the NSF NGF! You can help us optimize facility capabilities by using the new facility to support your research and teaching, by getting involved in Advisory Committees, working groups, and NSF NGF events. We will have an annual NSF NGF science meeting similar to the NSF GAGE/SAGE meetings in the past. We’ll also have an EarthScope annual member meeting at AGU and booths at other professional meetings.