The open house will include presentations by Marine Lab Director David Hankin and a chance for attendees to view the renovated wet lab and public aquarium displays.
The 18-month long renovation was funded through a National Science Foundation (NSF) grant, alumni contributions through the Humboldt Loyalty Fund and private donations totaling $350,000.
“What we’ve been able to do with these donations is literally tear down the walls and start with a blank slate,” Equipment Technician David Hoskins said. “It’s really exciting for us, for our students and for the thousands of visitors we get each year.”
“Dave and I both feel that when we retire, we will be leaving our marine lab in better
shape than when we arrived,” Hankin added.
The improvements are the largest made to the lab since its expansion in 1974 and are designed to boost safety, accessibility and expand services for the facility’s 15,000 annual visitors and hundreds of student and faculty researchers.
The public display area now includes a 12-foor by five-foot tank for viewing local marine organisms; smaller themed tanks highlighting local marine environments and digital displays featuring videos and photographs from Marine Biologist and Emmy Award-winning cinematographer Rick Rosenthal (’67). The upgrades were funded through a $100,000 donation from the United Plankton Foundation, a private organization that supports marine science, and $15,000 from the Desert Community Foundation (DCF), a Palm Desert, Calif. non-profit that allows donors to make contributions to causes that support their philanthropic goals.
Upgrades to the wet lab for undergraduate and graduate research on marine organisms include new water tank stands, a research area for visiting scientists and an enhanced electrical system, funded through a $200,000 grant from the NSF and $10,000 in alumni donations through the Humboldt Loyalty Fund. A new plumbing system makes it easier for student researchers in the College of Natural Resources and Sciences to alter the temperature and salinity of tank water, broadening the scope of their research.
Located on a cliff overlooking the Pacific Ocean in Trinidad, Humboldt State’s Telonicher Marine Lab was established in 1965 to provide a center for marine and environmental science teaching and research for students and faculty in the College of Natural Resources and Sciences. Undergraduates in the marine and environmental sciences perform two-thirds of research conducted at the center.
The lab has a circulating seawater system, lecture rooms and labs for biological oceanography, chemical oceanography, geological oceanography, marine biological sciences, mariculture and fisheries. Trinidad and Humboldt bays, the Pacific Ocean and local lagoons provide rocky and sandy inter-tidal and sub-tidal habitats for study.
For more information on the ceremony or the lab, call 707.826.3671.