Acquisition of a Uranium-Daughter Laboratory at the Berkeley Geochronology Center

在美国国家科学基金会的支持下，伯克利地质年代学中心将购买一台具有多个收集器的最先进的高丰度灵敏度热电离质谱仪（TIMS），用于铀系列和U-Th-Pb地质年代学。所需的精度和小样本量将允许系统分析样品并解决使用更多标准仪器无法解决的问题。这些技术在2万到50万年前的范围内尤其准确，正是在这一时期发生了许多重要事件，包括解剖学和行为学上的现代人的出现。这一时期的许多遗址是无法用最可靠的方法——放射性碳和氩氩测定法——测定的。提供这种TIMS不仅对古人类学家有价值，而且对地质学家、地球物理学家和生态学家也有价值。这些技术可以应用于一系列的成土物质，洞穴或石灰华碳酸盐，牙齿/骨头和火山锆石。其中许多都存在于古人类研究中，分析牙齿的能力意味着这些技术可以直接应用于感兴趣的标本，而不仅仅局限于相关的地质材料。伯克利地质年代学中心将提供配套资金，建设一个新的高质量清洁实验室和一个新的TIMS实验室。由此产生的服务将在广泛的科学领域产生直接和重大的效益。

With National Science Foundation support the Berkeley Geochronology Center will purchase a state-of-the-art high abundance sensitivity thermal ionization mass spectormeter(TIMS) with multiple collectors, to be used for Uranium series and U-Th-Pb geochronology. The precision and small sample size required will permit the system to analyze samples and address questions which are not possible using more standard instrumentation. The techniques are particularly accurate in the 20,000 to 500,000 age range and it was during this period that many important events, including the emergence of anatomically and behaviorally modern humans occurred. Many sites which fall in this time period are undatable by the most reliable methods - radiocarbon and argon-argon - and provision of this TIMS will provide information of value not only to paleoanthropologists but to geologists, geophysists and ecologists. These techniques can be applied to a range of pedogenic material, speleothem or travertine carbonate, teeth/bones and volcanic zircons. Many of these are present in paleoanthropological situations and the ability to analyze teeth means that the techniques can be applied directly to specimens of interest and are not limited to associated geological materials. The Berkeley Geochronology Center will provide matching funds to construct a new high-quality clean laboratory and a new TIMS laboratory. The resultant servicves which these provide will have a direct and major benefit in a wide range of sciences.