Upgrade of the Noble-Gas Geochronology Laboratory at Lehigh University

该项目正在支持利哈伊大学氩-氩和铀-钍-氦测年实验室的更新。这些测定矿物年代的技术（称为“稀有气体热年代学”）与地球科学有关，因为它们可以估计岩石在50摄氏度至500摄氏度范围内的时间和温度历史。这是与许多地质过程有关的重要温度范围，因为热是许多地质过程（例如，矿石和石油形成）的重要驱动剂，并且这些过程中的许多又导致地球内的温度变化（例如，由于山区的侵蚀）。稀有气体测年技术也用于确定地质物质的精确年龄，如火山灰和熔岩，从而可以校准包含生物进化，气候变化和其他环境变化记录的沉积剖面的年龄，范围从5万到5亿多年。时间和温度的知识对于了解地球资源、自然灾害和地球系统的基本功能至关重要。实验室的升级有助于改善研究基础设施，因为这有助于大大简化和提高纯度的样品制备，氦和氩定年系统的全自动化，以提高样品产量，以及泵送和气体净化方面的改进，这将提高单个分析的精度。这些升级支持里海大学研究人员对西藏、阿拉斯加、中美洲和蒙古山区和景观发展的研究，以及与其他机构的行业和学术研究人员的合作研究。这些升级使研究生和本科生更容易进入实验室，使更多的学生接触到现代地质研究方法，从而有助于教学。

This project is supporting the updating of Lehigh University's laboratory for argon-argon and uranium-thorium-helium dating. These techniques for dating minerals (termed "noble-gas thermochronology") are relevant to the geosciences because they allow estimates to be made of the time and temperature history of rocks over the range 50 degrees C to 500 degrees C. This is an important temperature range that has bearing on many geological processes, as heat is an important driving agent for many geologic processes (e.g. ore and oil formation) and in turn many of these processes cause temperatures to change within the Earth (e.g., due to erosion in mountainous areas). Noble-gas dating techniques are also used to determine precise ages for geological materials, such as volcanic ashes and lavas, thus allowing calibration of the age of sedimentary sections that contain records of biological evolution, climate variations, and other environmental changes, over a range from 50,000 to more than 500 million years. Knowledge of time and temperature is critical to the understanding of Earth resources, natural hazards, and the basic functioning of Earth systems.The laboratory upgrades are contributing to research infrastructure by facilitating greatly simplified and higher-purity sample preparation, full automation of both the helium- and argon-dating systems to permit higher sample throughput, and improvements in pumping and gas clean-up that will improve the precision of individual analyses. These upgrades are supporting studies of mountain and landscape development in Tibet, Alaska, Central America, and Mongolia by researchers at Lehigh University, as well as collaborative studies with industry and academic researchers at other institutions. These upgrades are providing more ready access to the laboratory by graduate and undergraduate students, exposing more students to modern methods of geological research, thus contributing to teaching and learning.