Track 2 MRI: Acquisition of a Mini Carbon Dating System for Multi-Millennial, Multi-User Sequences of Annually Resolved 14C and Other High Precision Applications

该主要研究仪器（MRI）计划奖提供资金支持购买一种仪器，用于测量植物，动物和一些无机样品中的碳-14 （14C或放射性碳）含量。碳-14是碳的不稳定同位素，可以用作“放射性时钟”来测定过去4万多年来一系列样品的年代。虽然放射性碳定年法是最广泛使用的工具，用于确定影响人类历史的事件的变化速度和时间，但封存在树木年轮等自然档案中的碳-14也为许多关键的科学前沿提供了重要的见解。这包括：重建过去全球尺度的大气和海洋环流变化；预测和缓解威胁空间天气事件的技术；了解太阳强迫对气候和气候的作用；通过使用全球检测到的碳-14标记事件，同步全球尺度的人类、气候和生态变化年表。该仪器将被整合到世界树木年轮研究实验室（LTRR）的教学、公共宣传和研究项目中，自20世纪60年代放射性碳测年技术问世以来，该实验室一直与放射性碳测年技术相互交织。这为加强和扩大STEM的推广和教学提供了独特的机会，通过将这两种测年和古环境重建方法结合起来，以新的方式引入核心科学概念，讲述科学故事，并激发碳-14分析前沿的新实验和应用。由于该仪器靠近LTRR中保存的数百万个可供分析的、独特的、每年一次的碳14样品档案，这将加速这一进程。购买Ionplus AG的迷你碳测年系统（MICADAS）将最大限度地提高稳定、高精度、小样本（50-500微克）碳14测量的吞吐量，用于需要快速处理数千个样品的应用，例如单个树木年轮的连续测量。MICADAS将集成自动化石墨化设备（AGE3）系统以及同位素比质谱仪（IRMS），以促进更快的样品制备和高效的吞吐量。在LTRR的安装将为当地、国家和国际用户社区提供一个服务中心，提供树木年轮和放射性碳定年的解决方案，并创造新的现场和远程培训机会，汇集树木年轮、年代和放射性碳方法方面的专业知识。开始研究重点将；继续进行国际社会的工作，利用单一的树木年轮样本重建国际放射性碳校准曲线现有的基于树木年轮的部分（任何人都需要使用放射性碳定年）；为可能威胁现代基础设施的过去空间天气极端事件的周期性和强度建立基线；提供全新世期间太阳对气候的强迫的年解析代用记录；揭示“宇宙起源锚点”，以同步不同的代理，如冰芯和树木年轮记录；探索全球和区域碳循环的变化；通过比较树木年轮和每年层压海洋双壳类的碳14时间序列来评估关键气气带的海洋环流。该设施将通过一系列研讨会、暑期学校、奖学金项目和网络资源，提供有针对性的跨学科培训机会（本地、国内和国际），以满足人们对树木年轮测年技术和放射性碳分析结合应用的利基培训日益增长的需求。该仪器的可及性、高容量和吞吐量以及样品制备要求也将为亚利桑那大学（一所授予土地的西班牙裔服务机构，女性学生占52%）的本科和研究生STEM学生、早期职业研究人员和教职员工提供出色的教学和培训机会。将仪器和相关的核心科学概念整合到一个蓬勃发展的外展计划中，该计划将到达地区第一所学校，每年服务约2,500名游客，这将确保新设施不仅作为产生新的交叉研究应用的纽带，而且作为激励下一代STEM科学家的地方，并告知公众科学用于测量时间和探索地球的过去、现在和未来的方式。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This Major Research Instrumentation (MRI) Program award provides funds to support the acquisition of an instrument with which to measure the amount of Carbon-14 (14C or radiocarbon) in plants, animals and some inorganic samples. Carbon-14 is the unstable isotope of carbon and can be used as a ‘radioactive clock’ to date a range of samples from the last 40+ thousand years. While radiocarbon dating is the most widely used tool with which to determine rates of change and the timing of events which impacted human history, Carbon-14 locked away in natural archives such as tree-rings also offers important insights into a number of key scientific frontiers. These include: reconstructing past global scale changes in atmospheric and oceanic circulation; predicting and mitigating for technology threatening space weather events; understanding the role of solar forcing on climate and; synchronizing global scale chronologies of human, climate and ecological change through the use of globally detected Carbon-14 marker events. The instrument will be integrated into the teaching, public outreach and research programs of the world’s founding Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research (LTRR), which has interwoven with radiocarbon dating since inception of the technique in the 1960s. This provides unique opportunities to enhance and broaden STEM outreach and teaching by combing these two dating and paleoenvironmental reconstruction methods in new ways to introduce core scientific concepts, tell science stories, and inspire new experimentation and applications at the cutting edge of Carbon-14 analysis. This will be accelerated by the proximity of the instrument to an archive of millions of ready-to-analyze, unique, annual-scale Carbon-14 samples housed in LTRR.The purchase of Ionplus AG’s Mini Carbon Dating System (MICADAS) will maximize throughput of stable, high-precision, small-sample (50–500 microgram) measurements of Carbon-14 for applications that require rapid throughput of thousands of samples, such as consecutive measurements from individual tree-rings. The MICADAS will integrate with an Automated Graphitization Equipment (AGE3) system coupled with an Isotope Ratio Mass Spectrometer (IRMS) to facilitate speedier sample preparation and efficient throughput. Installation in LTRR will provide a service center for a local, national, and international user community by offering tree-ring and radiocarbon-dating solutions under one roof, and creating new onsite and remote training opportunities with converging expertise in tree-ring, schlerochronological, and radiocarbon methods. Starting research foci will; continue in progress work towards an international community effort to rebuild the existing tree-ring based portion of the International Radiocarbon Calibration Curve (required by anyone dating samples using radiocarbon) using single tree-ring samples; work to establish baselines for the periodicity and magnitude of past space-weather extremes which could threaten modern infrastructure; provide an annually resolved proxy record of solar forcing on climate through the Holocene; reveal “cosmogenic anchor points” to synchronize disparate proxies such as ice-core and tree-ring records; explore global and regional variability in carbon cycling and; assess ocean circulation in critical climatic zones through comparison of Carbon-14 time-series from tree-rings and annually laminated marine bivalves. The facility will respond to an increasing need for niche training in combined applications using tree-ring dating techniques and radiocarbon analysis by offering targeted interdisciplinary training opportunities (locally, nationally and internationally) through a range of workshops, summer schools, scholarship programs and web-resources. The instrument’s accessibility, high capacity and throughput, plus sample preparation requirements will also provide outstanding teaching and training opportunities to benefit undergraduate and graduate STEM students, early-career researchers, and faculty at the University of Arizona (a land-grant, Hispanic Serving Institution with a 52% female student population). Integration of the instrument and associated core scientific concepts into a thriving outreach program, which reaches regional Title 1 schools and serves c. 2,500 visitors a year, will ensure that the new facility not only functions as a nexus to generate new-cross-cutting research applications, but also as a place to inspire the next generation of STEM scientists and to inform the public about the ways science is used to measure time and explore Earth’s past, present and future.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.