MRI-R2: Acquisition of a GC/MS triple quadrupole for the characterization of terrestrial plant biomarkers in complex environmental media at TAMUG

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This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).This award will fund the acquisition of a gas chromatography triple quadrupole mass spectrometer (CG-TQ-MS/MS), an electron multiplier, and an oxidation system. These instruments will support research on 2 major topics, 1) the transfer of terrigenous organic matter (TOM) from watersheds to aquatic systems in both dissolved and particulate forms and 2) the impact of biomass combustion on air quality in urban and rural settings. Such transport is strongly dependent on hydrological processes in the watershed with short-lived flood events playing a substantial role in large-scale pulse transfers. The PIs will investigate how hydrological shifts predicted by climate change scenarios may impact the overall transport of natural organic matter in natural and perturbed (e.g. urban) watersheds. The Arctic project is also introducing lignin as an additional tracer for upper Arctic Ocean ventilation processes in order to reconcile recently observed discrepancies among other established oceanographic tracers. In particular, TOM tracers will help to identify the different components of the Arctic freshwater cycle. The GC/MS will also contribute analytical capacity to recent research at TAMUG in characterizing the composition of combustion-derived particles depositing over urban to rural watersheds. Biomass combustion is a major source of atmospheric particles that affect air quality at the local to regional scale and climate at the regional to global scale. Climate fluctuations, and in particular changes in drought cyclicity and intensity are strong drivers of wildfire events which themselves contribute substantially to atmospheric aerosol loads.