Upgrade of community-orientated ICP-MS facilities for teaching and research at the University of Michigan

Regents Of The University Of Michigan - Ann Arbor, Ann Arbor MI

Investigators

Abstract

This award will provide funds to replace the 12 year old, collectively-owned, community-based High Resolution Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometer (HR-ICP-MS). Updating the ICP-MS facilities at the University of Michigan will provide both traditional and novel tools to understanding surface geology, marine systems, environmental science, regional climate and subglacial processes, and will be a significant infrastructure improvement to the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences. Continued infrastructure support to the University of Michigan will also be a resource to other local universities in the SE Michigan region. Research projects supported by the updating and retooling of HR-ICP-MS capabilities include: trace element geochemistry of marine sediments and carbonate archives to determine past environments and anthropogenic influence including proxy records of droughts, floods, ocean-atmosphere dynamics and sea surface temperature; trace and REE geochemistry of terrestrial sediments, paleosols and ancient sedimentary units, to reconstruct paleo-redox, ancient atmospheric CO2, and basin environments; major and trace element concentrations to elucidate factors controlling spatial and temporal variations in chemical fluxes from glaciated terrains; radioactive heavy isotope concentrations to accurately determine the age of the deepest ice within ice sheets; radioactive isotope concentrations by isotope dilution, as part of the U-Th/He thermochronology method used to study young tectonic histories and climate-tectonic interactions; the geochemistry of biological material from fossils to proteins; and the biogeochemistry of trace metals, including the release, transport and bioaccumulation of metals within the environment.