Facilities

Our laboratory inhabits ~1200 sq. ft. of space on the third floor of the Earth and Space Sciences Building and is centered around two gas-source isotope ratio mass spectrometers:

Thermo mat 253 plus + custom common acid bath

This is configured to measure isotopologues of carbon dioxide at masses 44-49 (incl. '47.5') for clumped isotope studies. The bespoke peripheral device can react and purify carbonate-derived carbon dioxide as well as gases prepared offline. Its design follows similar devices developed for carbonate clumped isotopes, though we have made some innovations in automated sample preparation by robotics.

Thermo Delta V plus + Flash EA

This is more or less an 'out-of-the-box' EA-IRMS system, though the Flash EA has a gas chromatography oven capable of temperature ramping and the Costech autosampler can be pumped out for C and N blank reduction.

Supporting equipment

We have a microbalance, a custom glass vacuum line, and other equipment (i.e., ovens, centrifuges, fume hoods, freeze drier, torch, microdrill, etc.) for experimental work and to prepare samples for isotopic analysis on the above instruments:

Note: We are set up for a limited amount of contract clumped isotope and C & N EA-IRMS contract work. Please inquire with Greg via email for pricing, sample requirements, and turnaround times.

In addition to the stable isotope laboratory, the Department of Geosciences houses several other labs with and in which we regularly work:

• Troy Rasbury's 'FIRST' laboratory - This space is directly adjacent to ours and holds an Agilent Technologies quadrupole inductively coupled mass spectrometer (ICP-MS) with capabilities for laser ablation and solution-based analyses, a Nu II multicollector HR-ICP-MS, and two IsotopX Phoenix62 thermal ionization mass spectrometers (TIMS). A wide number of elemental and high-precision isotopic measurements are possible with this suite of instruments.
• A sedimentary petrology laboratory - with the capacity to cut, thin section, and image (including cathodoluminescence microscopy) petrographic samples from a wide range of geologic materials.
• X-ray fluorescence (XRF) and Infrared and RAMAN spectroscopy in John Parise, Scott McLennan, Timothy Glotch, and Joel Hurowitz's groups.
• And, finally, our department has close ties to Brookhaven National Laboratory and the NSLS II