Early Career: Acquisition of a MC-ICP-MS for Research and Education in U-series Geochemistry and Applications in Geosciences

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This project is enabling the acquisition of a state-of-the-art multi-collector inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometer (MC-ICP-MS) to support a team of researchers within the Department of Geological Sciences at the University of Florida to make significant advances for research applications in the Earth and Ocean Sciences. This instrumentation facilitates the research program of the lead investigator, who is an early career female with a research focus on Uranium-series geochemistry, a technique used widely to determine the age of materials in studies of past climate and sea level change on time scales from a human life to thousands of years. This MC-ICP-MS instrument allows the development of sea level reconstructions with high temporal accuracy and precision, to define the rates and tempo of ice sheet retreat and sea level rise during past warm climates. These reconstructions can be paired with climate data to inform future projections of sea level rise over the coming decades to millennia. Additional capabilities afforded by this instrument will significantly improve other existing research programs as well as enabling new lines of research in a wide range of Earth science applications. The new MC-ICP-MS acquired through this project will enable the incorporation of new investigators and new research directions within our department, as will improve our analytical capabilities. Specifically, the primary new capabilities will allow for several ion-counting channels, including multiple high abundance sensitivity filters to facilitate the analysis of U-series measurements. The instrumentation will also allow for simultaneous measurement capability of U-Th-Pb-Hg during laser ablation analyses for U-Pb geochronology applications. These advances, among others, will impact research in a wide range of disciplines beyond earth and ocean sciences, including existing collaborations within anthropology, chemistry, agriculture, paleontology, biology, medicine, engineering, and forensic science. The instrumentation will be used to train students and post-doctoral scholars supported by a wide range of NSF programs.