Facilities Support: Amino Acid Geochronology Laboratory

Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff AZ

Investigators

Abstract

1234413 Kaufman This Facility Support grant provides for four years of gradually phased out support for the The Amino Acid Geochronology Laboratory (AAGL) at Northern Arizona University. This facility has been supported by EAR/IF since 2004. The facility supports in excess of 5,000 sample analyses per year for in house and external users as the result of continued EAR/IF partial support of an experienced lab technician. Racemization of amino acids following the death of an organism is proportional to time elapsed since death and the temperature of the reaction environment. AA geochonology therefore provides a tool to date fossil remains for which the temperature history of the environment can be inferred or for paleothermometry if the age of the sample is determined independently (e.g., radiocarbon dating). Sample analysis is rapid and inexpensive and sample size requirements are minimal, allowing for dating of individual microfossils, for example. The history of AAGL includes broad use of the facility for a range of geoscience inquiries and applications including: deep-sea sediment chronology and bottomwater paleothermometry, paleontological time-averaging of fossil assemblages with applications to historical ecology and sequence stratigraphy, sea-level fluctuations, Quaternary tectonic history, glacial geology, terrestrial outcrop (fluvial, eolian, and lacustrine sediments) and lake-core chronostratigraphy, and island land-snail evolution. AAGL data will continue to be archived at a national center, the World Data Center for Paleoclimatology. The Facility will ultimately become self supporting by FY 2016 via gradually higher analytical charges. ***