A portable, field-based isotope analyzer for carbon dioxide and methane

我们建议获得Picarro G2201-i质量分析仪，用于在现场和实验室中同时测量CO2和CH 4的碳同位素。该仪器重量轻，便于携带，非常适合我们在从北极高地到北方泥炭地再到火山喷发的各种环境中的现场应用。最重要的是，它是唯一可以同时或根据需要分别测量CO2和CH 4同位素组成的仪器。因此，它相当于花费数十万美元的实验室仪器。 我们使用该仪器的应用是多种多样的，并且具有很强的现场基础。它们包括表征来自火山和断层带的CO2的同位素组成，了解北方泥炭地的CO2和CH 4的源和汇，检测微生物甲烷生成和甲烷营养在昼夜，季节和年际时间尺度上的变化，确定加拿大北极高纬度地区土壤CO2和CH 4通量的来源，检测永久冻土零度以下低温环境中的原位微生物活动，并确定魁北克省圣劳伦斯低地地下水中的热成因天然气与生物成因天然气。 该仪器的主要动手用户将是我们的学生，包括本科生，研究生和博士后研究员。他们将成为专家用户，为他们的研究项目收集关键数据。我们将从每组中确定一名高年级学生为超级用户，即，找人培训我们PI将与这些人密切合作，进行应用程序开发。

We propose to obtain a Picarro G2201-i mass analyzer for simultaneous carbon isotopic measurements of CO2 and CH4 in the field and in the lab. This instrument is lightweight and portable and is ideally suited to our diverse field applications in environments ranging from the high Arctic through northern peatlands to erupting volcanoes. Most significantly, it is the only such instrument available which can measure the isotopic composition of both CO2 and CH4 simultaneously or separately as required. Hence it is equivalent to lab-based instrumentation costing hundreds of thousands of dollars. Our applications with this instrument are varied and strongly field-based. They include characterizing the isotopic composition of CO2 from volcanoes and fault zones, understanding sources and sinks of CO2 and CH4 in northern peatlands, detecting changes in microbial methanogenesis and methanotrophy on diurnal, seasonal, and inter-annual timescales, determining the sources of soil CO2 and CH4 fluxes in the Canadian high Arctic, detecting in situ microbial activity in cryoenvironments at subzero temperatures from permafrost, and identifying thermogenic vs. biogenic gas in groundwaters from the St. Lawrence Lowlands in Québec. The principal hands-on users of the instrument will be our students, including undergraduates, graduates students, and postdoctoral fellows. They will become expert users and collect crucial data for their research projects. We will identify one senior student from each of our groups to be super-users, i.e., go-to people for training. We the PI’s will work closely with these people for applications development.