Acquisition of Single-grain-luminescence-dating Instrument Systems

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This Major Research Instrumentation award supports acquisition of two Riso automated instrument systems for microgram and single-grain luminescence sediment dating at the Desert Research Institute (DRI) in Reno, operating the only geochronology laboratory in Nevada. Each of the systems includes a fully automated, micro-focusing, dual-laser, luminescence-stimulation facility and a low-hazard, mini-X-ray generator. The equipment is expected to grow present and support new collaborations among paleoenvironmental scientists, and to provide new opportunities for research training of students, within Nevada (at DRI, at the Nevada Bureau of Mines and Geology, and at the universities in Reno and Las Vegas) and within nearby western states, as well as the region's private geoscience sector. Such scientists and students will be able to collaborate in the use of the equipment for paleoenvironmental studies in fields such as paleoseismology, neotectonics, paleoclimatology, Quaternary geology (including Arctic and Antarctic studies), paleohydrology, geomorphology, geoarcheology, and paleoanthropology. Analyses of stored luminescence from single grains of quartz has been proven to provide accurate burial dates (last exposure to daylight) of grains in several classes of unheated sediments, from as young as a decade to as old as about 200,000 yrs. Thus, this technology can provide accurate timescales of sediment-matrix deposition (hence, of associated preserved environmental conditions) in settings that otherwise have been difficult or impossible to date. Examples of such dating applications include: measuring the time of last use of pre-historic irrigation canals in New Mexico; determining the history of sea-ice coverage in the Arctic Ocean; determining ice-shelf-collapse histories in Antarctica; and providing critical data for addressing state and national earthquake and flood histories.