The School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences has a range excellent facilities and equipment to support its research activities, as well as access to a number of central research facilities on campus.

 

Field stations play an integral role in the teaching and research activities of the School supporting our strong orientation towards field research. BEES directly manages two field stations: Cowan field station and Smiths Lake field station, and plays a prominent role in the management and research activities of Fowlers Gap Arid Zone Research Station, and Sydney Harbour Institute of Marine Science (SHIMS). SHIMS is a partnership with UTS, Macquarie University and University of Sydney, based at a former Royal Australian Navy site at Chowder Bay on Sydney Harbour. It offers safe and convenient access to marine habitats in one of the most spectacular and intensively used ports in the world. Key research areas will be the ecology of ports and harbours; coastal oceanography and geomorphology; biotechnology and bio-prospecting; and urban fisheries science.

 

This brand new facility is the home for all molecular biology lab work in the school, and is well equipped with equipment for DNA extraction, amplification and visualisation. We are also building a facility for extraction of ancient DNA. Members of the school also have access to the Clive and Vera Ramaciotti Centre for Gene Function Analysis which includes a DNA sequencing facility.

 

 

This research lab is dedicated to general soil analysis and palaeoenvironmental and geochemical research. It has a wide range of equipment for the physical, chemical and microfossil analysis of soils and sediments including fume cupboards, balances, sieves, ovens, furnaces, waterbaths, centrifuges, shaking equipment, and equipment for pH/EC

determinations, acid digests, mineral magnetism and pollen-slide production. The lab also houses several research microscopes and an extensive collection of pollen reference slides. This lab is also supported by other facilities housed elsewhere, including: an ICP mass spectrometer and ICP atomic spectrometer, X-ray diffraction and fluorescence equipment, a LECO carbon-sulfur-nitrogen analyser and a IPC 4-chamber oxygen plasma asher.

 

BEES has a large boat shed and maintains four boats to conduct its estuarine and coastal research. The 3 larger boats each have their own trailer, sounder, radio, GPS and safety gear. Associated with the boats are salinity meters, a range of coarse and fine mesh plankton nets, beach seines, and an optical plankton counter.

 

The Aquarium has been extensively renovated with a 30,000 L capacity seawater system, divided into 3 subsystems each with its own sump, sand filter and bio-filter, and supporting up to 30, forty litre tanks. The system is mostly used to rear invertebrates and algae.

The Dive Room is maintained by the University Dive Officer, who is responsible for OH&S, training and check-out dives of between 15-20 research SCUBA divers. The School owns 10 air tanks and a number of regulators and BCs.

 

BEES runs a large glasshouse, located atop the ajoining Samuels Building. The glasshouse is temperature controlled and is divided into four chambers including a quarantine chamber suitable for research on invasive or genetically modified organisms. The glasshouse facility includes preparation lab space adjacent to the main chambers, and contolled environment chambers on the ground floor of the Samuels Building.

 

An internationally registered herbarium (Code UNSW) administered by the School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences. It was established in 1956 and is housed on the 4th floor of the Life Sciences Building at Kensington. The herbarium now has some 40,000 specimens, including about 10,000 fungal specimens.

 

CENTRAL UNSW FACILITIES

UNSW has many large scale facilities that are accessible to researchers. From 2006, many of these will be colocated in the new Analytical Centre. Current facilities include: