Acquisition of New-Generation Ion Microprobe for the North East Regional Ion Microprobe Facility (NERIMF) at Woods HoleOceanographic Institution

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This award provides one-half the funding necessary to support a major equipment acquisition at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI). WHOI is committed to providing the remaining funds needed for the acquisition of a large-radius, high- transmission, secondary ion source mass spectrometer system, more commonly referred to as an ion microprobe. Recent technological developments have made the new generation ion probes capable of measuring isotopic species with extremely high abundance sensitivity and micron-level spatial resolution in samples of geological interest. The WHOI ion microprobe will be installed and maintained at the Woods Hole campus and operated as a facility open to the national geoscience research community. The analytical capabilities of the new instrument will be employed in research areas including the early evolution of the Earth, upper mantle dynamics (melting, melt extraction, generation of basalts), deep-seated metamorphic processes (rock-fluid physicochemical interactions), and environmental geochemistry (use of oxygen isotopes and trace metal distribution in foraminifera and bivalve shells to monitor changes in temperature and nutrient content of seawater).