Technician Support for the Geochronology Laboratory

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9506693 Tucker This grant provides $120,000 for three years of partial technician support for the University's Geochronology lab in the Department of Earth & Planetary Sciences. The university has provided one year (Jan 94 - Jan 95) of support for a Ph.D.-level technical scientist (Dr. Yuri Amelin) and will provide ca. 40% of the next three years of salary support. The technician will have responsibility for quality control, maintenance procedures, supervision of graduate students and visiting scientists and improving procedures at this lab which was established with the acquisition of a state-of-the-art VG sector 54 Thermal Ionization Mass Spectrometer purchased in January, 1994 (EAR-9219862). Although, the instrument has only recently attained its manufacturer's specifications in terms of precision due to the need for replacement of the original photomultiplier tube, the PI has carefully documented a large number of analyses of standards, blanks and initial samples of accessory minerals for U-Pb isotope series dating. The high-sensitivity, high-transmission instrument has afforded this lab the ability to make ultra-high precision measurements of Pb isotope ratios which, coupled with their class-100 clean room and careful chemical preparation of samples has resulted in very low, total-procedure, common-Pb blanks that ultimately translates into precise ( 3 Ma) dating capabilities for small (as little as 2 g) samples of accessory phase minerals. ***