NSF-Arizona Accelerator Facility for Radioisotope Analysis

该奖项提供了大约一半的资金， 要求操作NSF亚利桑那州加速器设施， 每年进行放射性同位素分析。其余年度 业务资金将从用户费中筹集。 “碳-14”方法利用已知的 这种碳同位素的放射性衰变和确定的 它在大气-生物圈- 岩石圈-水圈循环，以便将其作为一个极端 在测定自然样品和人工制品的年代方面有价值的工具， 六万年的范围。由其支持的加速器设施 该奖项将碳-14方法的使用扩展到极小的 样品，碳浓度非常低的样品，或 非常古老的样本，碳-14含量非常少。

This award provides approximately one-half of the funds required to operate the NSF-Arizona Accelerator Facility for Radioisotope Analysis on an annual basis. The rest of the annual operational funds are to be raised from user fees. The "carbon-14" method makes use of the known rate of radioactive decay of this carbon isotope and the well-determined systematics of its chemistry in the atmosphere-biosphere- lithosphere-hydrosphere cycles in order to use it as an extremely valuable tool in dating natural samples and artifacts in the 100- 60,000 year range. The accelerator facility supported by this award extends the use of the carbon-14 method to extremely small samples, samples with very small concentrations of carbon, or very old samples with very little carbon-14 content.