Acquisition of Automated, Gas-Source Isotope Ratio Mass Spectrometer

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This award provides one-half the funds required for the acquisition of an automated, multi-collector, gas-source isotope ratio mass spectrometer that will be installed and operated in the Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences at the California Institute of Technology. Caltech is providing the remaining funds needed. Research in progress in the Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences requires a very large number of stable isotope analyses of natural rocks, minerals, water samples, and organic materials. Some of these natural samples are available only in very small quantities, and the new instrument is needed to perform microanalyses on a large number of samples. A major research emphasis of the analyses will be in the use of the isotopic signatures of oxygen, hydrogen and carbon to decipher the history of water-rock interactions in the Earth's crust and in investigations of the detailed mechanisms of isotopic exchange between minerals and coexisting aqueous solutions.