Collaborative Research: Equipment: Acquisition of a Confocal Micro-Raman Spectroscopy System at the University of Massachusetts and Amherst College

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This award will support the acquisition of a confocal Raman spectroscopy system for research and teaching at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst College, and Five-college community. Raman spectroscopy involves the measurement of the slight energy shifts that result when a laser is focused on a mineral or fluid target sample. The magnitude and intensity of these energy shifts contain information about the identity, composition, or distortion of the target sample. The new Raman System – which will be housed at the University of Massachusetts - will be used by faculty, students, and researchers to identify and characterize minerals and fluids in rocks. Of particular interest are extremely small minerals and fluid “bubbles” that have been trapped in larger mineral grains. These tiny mineral and fluid inclusions can be difficult or impossible to identify by other techniques, and can be used to constrain the origin and evolution of the host rocks, in turn providing insight into large-scale Earth processes. The Raman system will aid researchers at University of Massachusetts and Amherst College in investigating: the evolution of mountain belts, the origins of critical mineral deposits, how magma is generated under volcanoes and where in the crust this magma is stored, and the development of new techniques to date rocks. The new system will also be incorporated into undergraduate and graduate classes, providing students with hands-on research and data-analysis experience. The Raman system will also serve as a component of our outreach activities, allowing faculty and students to hold demonstrations that showcase mineral identification and material characterization for K-12 students and other members of the surrounding communities. This acquisition of the Raman System is motivated by three immediate research avenues and one development project: (1) identification of mineral inclusions and inclusion assemblages in metamorphic porphyroblasts; (2) characterization of metamorphic pressures (and temperatures) using elastic thermobarometry; (3) quantification of CO2 in igneous melt inclusions; and (4) development of alpha-damage in zircon thermochronometer. The first three projects will contribute critical data and open new research avenues for active (funded) research projects. The development project may provide a new high-temperature thermochronometer to complement 40Ar/39Ar based systems. The Raman system will also be available for a wide range of research projects from faculty and students in the Five-College community. The new system will provide efficient mineral identification down to small grain/spot sizes (ca. 1 micrometer). It can be used to identify mineral inclusions even when such inclusions are not exposed at the surface of the host mineral. It is one of the few techniques for identification and quantification of volatile species (in-situ) in vapor bubbles within melt inclusions. Recently, Raman spectroscopy has been used to quantify the stress state in mineral lattices, which has given rise to rapidly expanding Raman barometry applications. For the research applications (above) and for many others, Raman spectroscopy provides data that cannot be obtained by other means. The new Raman spectroscopy system will also have a significant impact on teaching and student research at UMass, Amherst College, and in the Five College community. The PIs will develop Raman-based learning activities into their undergraduate and graduate Mineralogy and Petrology courses. Because of the ease of training and use, and our large archive of research samples, we suspect the Raman system may be particularly appropriate for involving undergraduate students in active, high-impact research projects as a precursor to senior theses.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.