Located on the Virginia Key campus of the University of Miami, the new Marine Technology Life Sciences Seawater Complex will be an 81,000 square feet complex that will be used to study the relationship between the oceans and human health. It will offer oceanographers, meteorologists, marine physicists, and engineers the opportunity to use unique, state-of-the-art equipment for their research and studies.
The new facility will consist of two buildings, namely The Surge-Structure ATMOSPHERE interaction (SUSTAIN) research laboratory and the Marine Life Sciences Center. Both the buildings will be interconnected by means of an open atrium.
The new facility will house a wind-wave-storm surge simulator, capable of generating Category 5 hurricane force winds in a 3D test environment, as well as the National Resource for Aplysia, where scientists will culture and study sea hares.
The project broke ground in June 2012 with the completion scheduled for late 2013. It was funded in part through a $15 million U.S. Department of Commerce American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) grant awarded by the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST).
