MRI: Acquisition of a Thermal Ionization Mass Spectrometer (TIMS) for high-precision isotopic research of the Earth's mantle, crust and oceans

该合同将为购买现代热电离质谱仪（TIMS）仪器提供资金。TIMS仪器将成为地球基本过程研究的一个组成部分，并将成为向本科生和研究生教授各种核心原理的宝贵工具，包括样品制备、质谱分析和数据解释和分析技术。现有的仪器设施在支持外部用户、提供样品制备、计量和通过短期课程吸引科学界方面的教学和培训方面有着悠久的历史。新的TIMS仪器将为地球科学、地理学和考古学的学生和教师提供服务，并将为该地区至少8所不同学院和大学的合作研究人员、学生和博士后提供培训和数据，其中许多是本科生和/或为西班牙裔服务的机构。新的TIMS仪器将把进行高精度同位素测量的机构研究能力转化为开展nsf资助的研究，研究主题包括变质作用和大陆地壳融化的时间尺度、地幔储层的年龄和起源、早期地球分化的时间尺度、洋中脊系统的岩浆过程、重建从千年到地质时间尺度的海洋环流和气候变率的变化。新的TIMS仪器的抵达将与一个新的专用清洁实验室设施和一个单独的气候控制仪器室的完工同时进行。该奖项的所有五位主要研究人员目前都有nsf资助的研究（地球科学、海洋科学、极地项目），这些研究将立即广泛地使用新的TIMS仪器。

This award will provide funds to acquire a modern Thermal Ionization Mass Spectrometer (TIMS) instrument. The TIMS instrument will form an integral component of research into fundamental Earth processes and will be an invaluable tool for teaching a variety of core principles to undergraduate and graduate students, including techniques for sample preparation, mass spectrometry, and data interpretation and analysis. Existing instrumental facilities have a strong history of supporting external users and providing teaching and training in sample preparation, metrology and engaging the scientific community through short-courses. The new TIMS instrument will serve students and faculty in Earth science, geography and archaeology, and will provide training and data to collaborating researchers, students and postdoctoral fellows from at least eight different colleges and universities in the region, many of which are undergraduate and/or Hispanic-serving institutions.The new TIMS instrument will transform institutional research capabilities for making high-precision isotopic measurements to carry-out NSF-funded research addressing themes including the timescales of metamorphism and melting of continental crust, the ages and origins of mantle reservoirs, time-scales of early-Earth differentiation, magmatic processes at mid-ocean ridge systems, and reconstruction of changes in ocean circulation and climate variability ranging from millennial to geologic time scales. The arrival of the new TIMS instrument will coincide with completion of a new, dedicated clean laboratory facility and a separate, climate-controlled instrument room. All five principle investigators on this award currently have NSF-funded research (Earth Sciences, Ocean Sciences, Polar Programs) that will make immediate and extensive use of the new TIMS instrument.