Samples Submission

Water

Samples to be analyzed for δ²H and/or δ¹⁸O of water must be collected and stored ideally in small glass vials with no or minimal head-space, and capped with a cone-shaped screw cap, e.g. Polyseal®. For extra precaution, we recommend placing a plastic paraffin film, such as Parafilm® around the seal. The water volume needed for each analysis is 0.2 mL. Samples should not be frozen, but a best practice is to keep cool. Vials made of plastic materials may be suitable too, but maximum storage time may be diminished. Teflon should not be used as it is very permeable to gases. Preservatives are not needed, but can be dealt with. If you use preservatives such as HgCl₂, please let us know which preservative and amount so we can take appropriate safety measures. There will be an extra fee of $2 per sample.

Samples to be analyzed for δ¹³C and δ¹⁸O of carbonate minerals should be submitted already weighed (~0.18 mg) and capped in Labco Exetainers® . You can also submit the samples as is, and we'll grind and weigh them for you (see extra cost).

Samples to be analyzed for δ¹³C and δ¹⁵N of organic materials should be weighed and folded in tin cups and placed in 96 wells trays. The weights depend on the type of sample (see here), and we recommend you contact us if you have any doubt. Please use the following spreadsheet to submit your samples. We need to know the C and N contents of all your samples to be able to dilute appropriately. It is not necessary to have this information for all samples, we can deal with some variation. However, the larger the error, the larger the correction we have to apply, leading to less reliable isotope values. We will run a few samples to determine C and N content (free up to 5 samples, $5 per sample after that). We can also dry, grind and weigh the samples for you (see extra cost).
Please submit your samples with a printed version of the submission spreadsheet attached to the samples tray, and send us the electronic version (magen@umces.edu).

Soil, sediment, water or gas samples should be collected in glass serum vials with crimped thick butyl rubber septa The size of the vial depends largely on the concentration of methane in your sample. Please contact us for more details.