Acquisition of X-Ray Flourescence Instrumentation for Archaeological, Geological, and Environmental Research and Training

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9601715 Pingitore This grant provides $111,126 as partial support of the costs of acquiring an X-ray microfluorescence (XRMF) spectrometer. This instrument is comparable to an energy dispersive XRF but has a very narrow collimated X-ray beam which allows non- destructive elemental analyses of geological and archaeological samples at relatively high spatial resolutions (~ 30 microns). Although this instrument is also comparable to an electron microprobe (EMP) in many of its capabilities, the XRMF can handle much larger samples and little to no sample preparation is required making XRMF analyses relatively simple to learn and therefore amenable to undergraduate student involvement. This instrument will be used for a variety of interdisciplinary research topics at this largest Hispanic-majority institution in the U.S. including, non-destructive compositional analyses of rare archaeological artifacts such as pottery shards and bone as indicators of source material locations and thus settlement patterns and dietary habits of ancient civilizations, analyses of the Sr/Ca ratio in growth banded corals as proxies for paleo sea surface temperatures and the analyses of plant tissues for toxic metals in environmental studies. ***