Continued development of PyChron for 40Ar/39Ar geochronology

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This award will provide funding to further the development of a software suite used for Argon geochronology data acquisition and data reduction at the New Mexico Geochronology Research Laboratory. Comprehensive software suites are vital to all modern analytical instrumentation and are best developed by users of the instrumentation rather than providers of the instruments. This award will support the development of user and developer documentation as well as new and innovative laboratory techniques by an early-career Post-Doctoral researcher. Argon geochronology is one of many critically important methods to determine rock age and thermal history and user friendly, high quality software is essential to the success of all argon geochronology facilities. Hardware automation, efficient data storage and data processing have greatly enhanced the geochronologist?s ability to make meaningful geologic conclusions and promotes new discovery by providing streamlined access to multiple methods of data reduction and acquisition. However, much of the currently existing software is not ultimately sustainable because of lack of comprehensive documentation and community involvement towards new development. This award will help address both of these issues by supporting the writing of thorough documentation with the intent making it easily available to other laboratories. This software suite will also serve an important function of ultra-high precision and accuracy geochronology by conducting detailed comparability of data outputs from other software suites used in argon geochronology.