Plans are underway for the construction of a new high-tech research and teaching facility that will be used by the U.S. Geological Survey in Colorado.
The facility will be built on the campus of the Colorado School of Mines in Golden and will be funded out of the Infrastructure and Jobs Act passed by Congress late last year.
That funding amounts to $167 million.
In a statement Interior Secretary Deb Haaland said the targeted funding will “help maintain and enhance the necessary infrastructure to provide unique research and operational capabilities in critical minerals research, energy resource evaluation, and other essential energy and mineral program priorities for the USGS.”
Established in 1979, the U.S. Geological Survey is a fact-finding entity using biological and geographical tools to decipher natural hazards that may threaten the country’s landscape.
Headquartered in Reston, Virginia, the agency has more than 500 laboratories nationally, and has had a longstanding presence of more than four decades at the School of Mines.
The new Energy and Minerals Research Building will house both USGS facilities as well as the school’s Central Energy Resources Center.
The new facility will be built at the site of a current parking lot at the intersection of 18th Street and Cheyenne Streets. By design, energy and minerals researchers will be working shoulder-to-shoulder with the School of Mines energy and geoscience faculty in the new building.
Describing the new structure as a “world-class energy and minerals research facility,” Paul Johnson, School of Mines president, said the facility will “provide an unparalleled educational opportunity for our students to work and learn at the cutting edge of research and technology development with both Mines and USGS experts.”
With work expected to begin on the facility later this year, it is thought that the project will see completion by around 2028.
By Garry Boulard
