MRI-R2: Acquisition of a GC/MS triple quadrupole for the characterization of terrestrial plant biomarkers in complex environmental media at TAMUG

该奖项是根据2009年美国复苏和再投资法案（公法111-5）资助的。该合同将资助购买气相色谱三重四极杆质谱仪（CG-TQ-MS/MS）、电子倍增器和氧化系统。这些仪器将支持两个主要主题的研究，1)陆源有机物（TOM）从流域到水生系统的溶解和颗粒形式的转移，2)生物质燃烧对城市和农村空气质量的影响。这种传输强烈依赖于流域的水文过程，短期洪水事件在大尺度脉冲传输中起着重要作用。pi将调查气候变化情景预测的水文变化如何影响自然和受干扰（如城市）流域天然有机质的整体运输。北极项目还引入木质素作为北冰洋上部通风过程的额外示踪剂，以调和最近观察到的其他已建立的海洋示踪剂之间的差异。特别是，TOM示踪剂将有助于确定北极淡水循环的不同组成部分。GC/MS还将为TAMUG最近的研究提供分析能力，以表征城市到农村流域沉积的燃烧衍生颗粒的组成。生物质燃烧是影响局部到区域尺度空气质量和区域到全球尺度气候的大气颗粒物的主要来源。气候波动，特别是干旱周期和强度的变化是野火事件的强烈驱动因素，而野火事件本身对大气气溶胶负荷有很大贡献。

This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).This award will fund the acquisition of a gas chromatography triple quadrupole mass spectrometer (CG-TQ-MS/MS), an electron multiplier, and an oxidation system. These instruments will support research on 2 major topics, 1) the transfer of terrigenous organic matter (TOM) from watersheds to aquatic systems in both dissolved and particulate forms and 2) the impact of biomass combustion on air quality in urban and rural settings. Such transport is strongly dependent on hydrological processes in the watershed with short-lived flood events playing a substantial role in large-scale pulse transfers. The PIs will investigate how hydrological shifts predicted by climate change scenarios may impact the overall transport of natural organic matter in natural and perturbed (e.g. urban) watersheds. The Arctic project is also introducing lignin as an additional tracer for upper Arctic Ocean ventilation processes in order to reconcile recently observed discrepancies among other established oceanographic tracers. In particular, TOM tracers will help to identify the different components of the Arctic freshwater cycle. The GC/MS will also contribute analytical capacity to recent research at TAMUG in characterizing the composition of combustion-derived particles depositing over urban to rural watersheds. Biomass combustion is a major source of atmospheric particles that affect air quality at the local to regional scale and climate at the regional to global scale. Climate fluctuations, and in particular changes in drought cyclicity and intensity are strong drivers of wildfire events which themselves contribute substantially to atmospheric aerosol loads.