Acquisition and Upgrade of Instrumentation for Noble Gas Geochronology and Thermochronology

该合同将导致安装和调试新的质谱仪器，这将大大提高亚利桑那州立大学（ASU）18组实验室的分析能力。这些能力将主要用于加深对各种地球科学过程的了解，特别是主要断层带的演变、山脉地形的演变以及活动和古老沉积盆地的沉积历史。这种仪器将能够以极高的空间分辨率和精度对地质材料进行最先进的测年。除了支持亚利桑那州立大学地球科学研究，研究人员致力于使这些仪器可用于支持研究项目从外部，联邦资助的研究由科学家在其他大学和研究设施。这些文书所支持的所有工作将促进美国地球科学的进步，特别是通过研究与能源和战略矿物资源开发以及自然灾害有关的专题。通过免费开发基于网络的教程，这些教程基于这些仪器的设计，建造和调试，以培训未来的实验室技术人员，我们希望这个项目将对地球科学研究产生持久的影响。这个项目涉及购买一个新的多收集器，惰性气体质谱仪（Isotopx NGX-600），将纳入紫外激光烧蚀微探针（UVLAMP）分析系统。该系统将是非常有能力的UVLAMP工作，这将使我们能够开发改进的microcoanalytical协议，40 Ar/39 Ar地质年代学研究非常年轻的样品具有非常高的空间分辨率。该项目还涉及对现有GV Instruments的HAS-SFT进行电子和软件升级，以实现碎屑矿物的快速吞吐量激光烧蚀（U-Th）/He测年。这些仪器将加速和提高我们的地球科学研究成果，使我们能够为更多的外部用户提供服务，并扩大我们可以容纳的研究类型。我们将利用该项目的收购部分，开发一个专门针对全国研究生的教育项目，目的是让他们了解这项奋进的复杂性，并更好地理解地质年代学和热年代学的仪器方面。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过利用基金会的智力价值进行评估，被认为值得支持和更广泛的影响审查标准。

This award will result in the installation and commissioning of new mass spectrometry instruments that will greatly enhance the analytical capabilities of the Group 18 Laboratories at Arizona State University (ASU). These capabilities will be used predominantly to develop an enhanced understanding of a variety of geoscience processes, especially the evolution of major fault zones, the topographic evolution of mountain ranges, and the depositional history of active and ancient sedimentary basins. This instrumentation will enable state-of-the-art dating of geologic materials with extremely high spatial resolution and precision. In addition to supporting ASU geoscience research, the investigators are dedicated to making these instruments available for the support of research projects from external, federally funded research by scientists at other universities and research facilities. All of the work supported by these instruments will promote the advancement of geoscience in the United States, in particularly through studies of topics related to energy and strategic mineral resource development and natural hazards. Through the associated development of freely available, web-based tutorials based on the design, building, and commissioning of these instruments for the purpose of training future laboratory technicians, we hope this project will have lasting impact on geoscience research.This project involves the acquisition of a new, multicollector, noble gas mass spectrometer (Isotopx NGX-600) that will be incorporated into an ultraviolet laser ablation microprobe (UVLAMP) analytical system. This system will be unusually capable for UVLAMP work, which will permit us to develop improved mircoanalytical protocols for 40Ar/39Ar geochronologic studies of unusually young samples with very high spatial resolution. The project also involves an electronics and software upgrade of an existing GV Instruments Helix SFT to enable rapid throughput laser ablation (U-Th)/He dating of detrital minerals. Together these instruments will accelerate and improve our geoscience research output, will allow us to serve a larger number of external users, and will expand the types of studies that we can accommodate. We will take advantage of the acquisition part of this project to develop an educational program specifically aimed at graduate students nationwide, with the goal of providing them with a sense of the complexity of this endeavor and a better understanding of the instrumentation side of geochronology and thermochronology.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.