MRI: Acquisition of a Thermal Ionization Mass Spectrometer (TIMS) for high-precision isotopic research of the Earth's mantle, crust and oceans

University Of California-Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara CA

Investigators

Abstract

This award will provide funds to acquire a modern Thermal Ionization Mass Spectrometer (TIMS) instrument. The TIMS instrument will form an integral component of research into fundamental Earth processes and will be an invaluable tool for teaching a variety of core principles to undergraduate and graduate students, including techniques for sample preparation, mass spectrometry, and data interpretation and analysis. Existing instrumental facilities have a strong history of supporting external users and providing teaching and training in sample preparation, metrology and engaging the scientific community through short-courses. The new TIMS instrument will serve students and faculty in Earth science, geography and archaeology, and will provide training and data to collaborating researchers, students and postdoctoral fellows from at least eight different colleges and universities in the region, many of which are undergraduate and/or Hispanic-serving institutions. The new TIMS instrument will transform institutional research capabilities for making high-precision isotopic measurements to carry-out NSF-funded research addressing themes including the timescales of metamorphism and melting of continental crust, the ages and origins of mantle reservoirs, time-scales of early-Earth differentiation, magmatic processes at mid-ocean ridge systems, and reconstruction of changes in ocean circulation and climate variability ranging from millennial to geologic time scales. The arrival of the new TIMS instrument will coincide with completion of a new, dedicated clean laboratory facility and a separate, climate-controlled instrument room. All five principle investigators on this award currently have NSF-funded research (Earth Sciences, Ocean Sciences, Polar Programs) that will make immediate and extensive use of the new TIMS instrument.