Laboratories

Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy

A Thermo-Nicolet iS50 Analytical Fourier transform infrared spectrometer with Continuum Microscope attachment is capable of measuring in situ, at small scales (~11-100 microns) the abundance of elements with bond motions that absorb infrared light. The primary analyses that I employ are to measure the dissolved water and carbon dioxide contents of silicate glasses.

Laser Ablation Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry

A 193 nm excimer coherent laser is coupled to an Agilent 7900 inductively coupled plasma quadrupole mass spectrometer in the Lyons Plasma Facility. This pairing is capable of measuring the abundance of trace elements in situ, at small scales (~30-180 microns) in a variety of solid materials.

BENCHTOP SCANNING ELECTRON MICROSCOPE

A JEOL JCM-7000 benchtop scanning electron microscope with mapping, tilt-rotate, and thin section stages is capable of generating high magnification backscatter electron images of conductive and non-conductive (along with use of a new carbon coater) specimens. This instrument is also equipped with an EDS detector that collects broad spectrum elemental spectra, enabling the semi-quantitative compositional analysis of point, line, and mapped regions.

Clean Laboratory for Trace Element Digestions

A quasi-clean laboratory is HF, aqua regia capable and enables the digestion of a broad range of sedimentary, igneous, and metamorphic rocks for various bulk liquid analyses including redox titrations for ferric/ferrous iron and sulfide/sulfate sulfur. This lab is equipped with polypropylene casework and laminar fume hoods, Milli-Q Water System, and a suite of precision analytical balances down to microgram readability.

X-ray Absorption Near Edge Structure Spectroscopy

I travel to Argonne National Laboratory to use beamline 13-IDE at the Advanced Photon Source and to Brookhaven National Laboratory to use beamline 4-BM to make measurements of the oxidation states of Fe and S using x-ray absorption near edge structure spectroscopy. These analyses can be done in situ, at small scales (~5-100 microns) in a variety of materials.

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