Facilities

Most center faculty are affiliates of the LCRI. The LCRI was established in 1997 as an interdisciplinary institute at Plattsburgh State to foster research in the Lake Champlain basin. The LCRI provides a 32’ research vessel, water quality research laboratories, and hosts the NOAA Lake Champlain Sea Grant Program.

Learn more about the Lake Champlain Research Institute

Located on the Altona Flat Rock Pine Barrens, the ESFL is a focal point for interdisciplinary research on hydrogeology and ecology. Created by a break out flood at the end of the last ice age, these unique ecosystems are located on fractured sandstone pavement with shallow soil and are dominated by Jack Pine (Pinus banksiana). An extensive network of automated meteorological monitoring equipment, groundwater wells, and stream gaging weirs has been used by students in numerous undergraduate research projects.

The Remote Sensing/GIS Lab has been been producing a digital database of watersheds and wetlands in the Adirondack Park since 1991. Undergraduate students help with all spectra of the research from delineating watersheds to remote sensing of wetlands to building the detailed Geographical Information System (GIS) databases. The lab is a focal point for research and teaching both remote sensing and GIS skills. SUNY Plattsburgh also supports a twenty station GIS computer lab.

The Remote Sensing Facility

The Remote Sensing Laboratory (RSL) contains a wide range of equipment including our own aerial camera system. The twin Hasselblad EL-500 cameras and custom-fabricated wing-mounted pod have been employed in several investigations where large-scale imagery of a local area was needed.

Photo interpretation equipment includes zoom, mirror and dual stereoscopes, parallax bars, stereo-zoom transfer scope, digital planimeters, and anaglphic and SIA stereoplotters. In addition, the lab has a LICOR spectroradiometer (300-1100 mm) and a Datacolor image-enhancement system.

The lab’s local-area network consists of six PC’s. Four digitizing tablets, 9-track and 8mm tape drives, two printers, and both ink-jet and pen plotters. GIS and digital image processing systems include Arc/Info and ArcGIS (for both PC and Windows NT), Erdas Imagine, and a Spectral Data Corporation Remote Image Processing System (RIPS).

Research Activity

The Remote Sensing Laboratory has been involved with local and regional research projects including landslide and other geological research, acid precipitation research, sea-lamprey control, and wetlands mapping and ecology.

Undergraduate Research Opportunities

The projects have given many of our undergraduate students the opportunity to make a significant contribution to an ongoing research project.

Through the Lake Champlain Research Institute, faculty affiliates have access to state-of-the-art instrumentation water analysis tools in our Environmental Chemistry Labs. Instruments include an atomic absorption spectrophometer with graphite furnace, inductively coupled plasma spectrometers (ICP-OES and ICP-MS), high performance liquid chromatographs, and gas chromatographs equipped with a range of detectors (GC-MS, GC-FID, GC-ECD).

Learn more about the Environmental Chemistry Laboratories

Rugar Woods is located on the Saranac River side of campus. The woods feature research areas, wildlife viewing points and recreational trails.

 

View the Rugar Woods map at full size

Since 1945, Twin Valleys has served as a field campus for college instructional programs, student organization activities and a variety of functions, such as; meetings, workshops and team building activities.

Learn more about Twin Valleys Outdoor Education Center