Isoprime precisION Isotope Ratio Mass Spectrometer

The GES Department is home to an Isoprime precisION isotope ratio mass spectrometer (IRMS) by Elementar, which is configured for continuous flow sample preparation to measure stable isotopes of Hydrogen, Carbon, Nitrogen, Oxygen, and Sulfur from a variety of materials.  Currently the IRMS is coupled to Elementar's IsoFLOW, which can measure stable carbon and oxygen isotopes from solid (rock) or liquid (dissolved inorganic) forms of carbonate.  The SCIENCE Lab (Stable Carbon Isotopic Experimentation and Neogene Carbonate Environmental analysis) is capable of measuring up to 180 samples at once using the auto-sampler configured to the IsoFLOW, which, depending on how many standards and duplicates are analyzed during a run, means over 100 samples can be analyzed in a session.  Samples are acidified with >100% Phosphoric acid to create carbon dioxide (CO2) gas in a helium atmosphere, which is passed into the IRMS for isotopic analysis.  This configuration is ideal to analyze geologic materials like calcite, aragonite, and dolomite. Analytical precision of standards for carbon (𝛿13C is <0.1‰ and for oxygen (𝛿18O) is <0.2‰.