College Receives $4.1 Million Software Grant

CHARLESTON, SC – April 13, 2010 – The College of Charleston announced that the school’s Geology and Environmental Geosciences Department was recently awarded a software grant for $4.1-million from Seismic-Micro Technologies (SMT), the world’s leading developer of software solutions for the 3-D visualization and analysis of complex geological datasets.

The software and training materials will be linked to the Departments 3-D visualization laboratories in the new Science Center and on computers throughout our department. It will also be paired with the marine remote sensing equipment to support the department’s coastal plain and seafloor mapping programs and portions of the hazards center.

“Having this product available to our students will make them more marketable and competitive for private sector jobs and graduate schools focused on oil and gas exploration, groundwater studies, resource delineation, and hazards assessments,” says Scott Harris, Assistant professor of Geology and Environmental Geosciences.  “Over the past few years, several of our students have come back from summer internships having worked with the Kingdom Suite software, and that has prepared them for a mainline track into the oil and gas exploration industry.”

Harris says the software will also help to support data collected for seafloor characterization, shallow-subsurface work conducted for beach renourishment surveys and hazards analysis.

“This grant is extremely exciting for the Department and will raise the visibility of our already highly-regarded students to yet another level,” says James Deavor, interim dean of the School of Sciences and Mathematics.