MRI Acquisition: An ICP-MS Facility at the University of Utah

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This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5). The goal of this project is to create an inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) facility with capabilities to study trace elemental content and isotopic ratios for gaseous and liquid solutions, colloids, minerals, fossils, gels and tissue. Research areas to be initially addressed are: 1) carbonates as records of environmental and paleoenvironmental change; 2) colloid transport and trace elements cycling in aquatic systems; 3) dating of archeological and geological material; 4) earth transformations caused by geological forces; 5) provenance studies of carbonates, hair and organic materials; 6) elemental distribution in tissues and fossils; 7) origin and evolution of magmas, igneous and metamorphic rocks and ore deposits; and 8) correlations of volcanic ashes for the study of stratigraphic sequences. The facility will have: 1) a multicollector ICP-MS; 2) a collision cell quadrupole ICP-MS; 3) a laser ablation sampling system; 4) peripheral equipment for introducing liquid/gas samples; and 5) clean lab space for wet chemistry and sample handling.Chemical elements move around the Earth via geological, biological and anthropological processes. Even when the concentration for some of these elements is tiny (a few parts per billion), they can impact ecosystems and organisms in crucial ways as beneficial or damaging components. In addition, the concentration changes of these trace elements through sediments or rocks can be related to the geological, environmental and climatic variations that occurred during their formation. In the case of fossils, elemental variation can also reveal diet changes and in the case of tissue, elucidate physiological mechanisms. Finally, those trace elements that are radioactive can be used to obtain geological ages. When coupled with a laser, ICP-MS can directly detect these minute amounts in solids, gels or tissue without laborious chemical procedures. The research achieved using the facility will contribute to solutions to regional and national technological problems, specifically in the fields of environmental sustainability, forensics, energy and mineral resources, and advanced materials.