Acquisition of a Thermal Ionization Mass Spectrometer for EARTHTIME

该奖项是根据2009年美国复苏和再投资法案（公法111-5）资助的。 该奖项将提供资金，为麻省理工学院地球、大气和行星科学系的同位素实验室购买热电离质谱仪（TIMS）。随着EARTHTIME计划的发展势头，我们将购买一台新仪器，该仪器将针对含铀副矿物的高精度U-Pb地质年代学进行优化，并致力于完成EARTHTIME的使命。 EARTHTIME项目是一个以社区为基础的组织，致力于建立协调一致的国际基础设施和必要的分析设施，以实现对过去8亿年地球历史的高分辨率校准。为了实现这一目标，EARTHTIME试图通过实验室之间的合作努力减少地质年代学的不确定性，并促进地质年代学家和古生物学家/地层学家之间的交流。目前，大部分的努力已经针对消除实验室间和技术间的偏差ID-TIMS的U-Pb和40 Ar-39 Ar年代学。EARTHTIME的下一步是扩大NSF资助实验室的分析能力。 该奖项将允许扩大麻省理工学院实验室的能力，以帮助PI自己的研究，并创建一个专门的EARTHTIME实验室，为更大的社区服务。 作为一个专门的EARTHTIME节点，麻省理工学院的设施将是计划中的实验室网络的一部分，该网络将容纳来自其他机构的科学家，特别是希望访问和学习地质年代学科学的学生。目标是培养新一代的地球科学家，对他们来说，高精度的地质年代学是他们科学工具包的一部分，无论是古生物学家，地层学家还是岩石学家。几位前研究生和博士后学者现在在美国和欧洲的地球时间相关地质年代学中发挥领导作用。 作为我们努力的一部分，作为一个地球时间节点，鲍林将继续积极的教育和推广计划，教初中和高中学生有关地质年代学的科学。

This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5). This award will provide the funding to acquire a Thermal Ionization Mass Spectrometer (TIMS) for the Isotope Laboratory in the Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences at MIT. With the growing momentum behind the EARTHTIME initiative, we will purchase a new instrument that will be optimized for and dedicated to high-precision U-Pb geochronology of uranium-bearing accessory minerals and fulfilling the mission of EARTHTIME. The EARTHTIME project is a community-based organization dedicated to establishing a coordinated international infrastructure and the analytical facilities necessary to achieve high resolution calibration of the past 800 million years of Earth history. To achieve this goal, EARTHTIME seeks to reduce geochronologic uncertainties through a cooperative effort between laboratories and to promote communication between geochronologists and paleontologists/ stratigraphers. At present, much of the effort has been directed towards eliminating inter-laboratory and inter-technique biases for ID-TIMS U-Pb and 40Ar-39Ar geochronology. The next step for EARTHTIME is to expand the analytical capacity of NSF-funded labs. This award will permit the expansion of the MIT lab's capabilities to aid both the PIs own research and to create a dedicated EARTHTIME lab to serve the greater community. As a dedicated EARTHTIME node, the MIT facility would represent part of a planned network of laboratories that will accommodate scientists from other institutions, especially students, who wish to visit and learn the science of geochronology. The goal is to train a new generation of earth scientists for whom high-precision geochronology is part of their scientific tool kit, whether paleontologist, stratigrapher, or petrologist. Several former graduate students and post-doctoral scholars now play leadership roles in EARTHTIME-related geochronology in both the U.S. and Europe. As part of our effort as an EARTHTIME node, Bowring will continue an aggressive program of education and outreach to teach middle and high school students about the science of geochronology.