Laser-Ablation Inductively-Coupled-Plasma Mass-Spectrometer

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Laser-ablation inductively-coupled-plasma mass-spectrometry (LA ICP MS) is an emerging and versatile tool for spatial microanalysis of elemental and isotopic concentrations in solid materials. The concentrations of trace elements in geological materials provide information on their source or provenance, physical and chemical conditions during their formation or any subsequent mass-transport processes. This approach is in turn essential for our understanding of local and global geochemical cycles and their time scales. Our research program combines experimental and field-oriented approaches together with equilibrium and kinetic modeling of magmatic and hydrothermal processes. Experimentally, we concentrate on mineral stabilities, solubilities and element partitioning during equilibrium or kinetic processes such as crystal nucleation and growth in magmatic systems. In the field-oriented studies we employ mineral equilibria to reconstruct complex processes of magmatic-hydrothermal transition and mass transport, and fluid focusing as control of element dispersal or accumulation in hydrothermal and ore-forming systems. We will use trace components in natural minerals and experimental materials, analyzed by LA ICP MS, to improve our understanding of their incorporation mechanisms and saturation limits and develop new thermodynamic models and data for very dilute (Henrian) trace components in solids. This approach will open new avenues for coupled interpretative or predictive modeling of macroscopic phase equilibria with host-specific trace element distribution and/or mass transport in geological systems.