Major Analytical Equipment

The Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences has modern laboratory facilities for rock processing, microscopy, analytical and isotopic geochemistry, and molecular geomicrobiology. Among the major instrumentation and laboratory facilities of the Department are the following:

• Fully automated JEOL-8200 electron microprobe with five wavelength-dispersive spectrometers, an energy dispersive spectrometer, and a cathodoluminescence detector
• Cameca IMS3f ion microprobe
• Cameca NanoSIMS 50 ion microprobe
• Two VG Sector 54 thermal ionization mass spectrometers
• Finnegan MAT "Element" high-resolution ICP-mass spectrometer
• Thermo Finnigan MAT 252 stable isotope spectrometer with Gas Bench
  II, HDevice, and PAL autosampler
• Siemens SRS-200 and SRS-300 sequential X-ray fluorescence spectrometers for XRF analyses
• Rigaku vertical X-ray diffractometer
• SpectruMedix Aurora capillary electrophoresis DNA sequencer
• Dionex DX600 ion chromotgraph
• Tekmar Dohrmann Apollo 9000 Total Organic Carbon Analyer
• Zeiss epifluorescence microscope with CCD camera
• Two double-frequency HoloLab 5000-532 Raman microprobes (Kaiser Optical System, Inc.)
• HoloLab 5000-633 Raman microprobes (Kaiser Optical System, Inc.)
• Bomem far-IR to visible Fourier transform spectrometer
• Nexus 670 FTIR spectrometer (Thermo Nicolet)
• 4 Streckeisen STS-2 3 component broadband seismographs
• 4 Reftek 6 channel 24 bit digital acquisition systems and peripherals
• Worden Gravimeter
• 2 portable digital magnetometers
• 90 node beowulf parallel computer
• Streckheisen broadband seismographs with Reftek dataloggers for
  seismic field deployments
• "Betsy" Seisgun portable seismic source
• Agilent 6890N gas chromatograph with TCD, FID, automated gas sampling valve, and cryogenic cooling
• Quantasorb BET surface area analyzer
• Thirty microprocessor-controlled gas mixing furnaces with electronic mass flow controllers and zirconia oxygen sensors
• Gas-source mass spectrometers for noble-gas isotopic analyses
• diamond anvil cell laboratory
• Netszch laser-flash apparatus for thermal diffusivity
• Canberra Genie-ESP gamma-ray spectrometry system with four detectors for neutron activation analysis
• Remote-sensing, mapping/imaging spectrometers for mineralogical and biogeochemical studies
• ASD portable field reflectance spectrometer (0.4 to 2.5 micrometers)
• Designs and Prototypes emission spectrometer (2 to 20 micrometers)
• A variety of transmitted- and reflected-light microscopes for teaching and research
• Color camera and monitor for teaching optical microscopy and petrology
• Nuclide luminoscope for cathodoluminescence analysis
• Heating-freezing stages for fluid-inclusion analysis
• Vacuum line for extraction and purification of carbon dioxide samples

A wide variety of other instruments is available through the departments of Chemistry, Physics, and Engineering, and through the Washington University School of Medicine. Because the University administration strongly supports our development, we expect that departmental growth will result in major additions to our equipment over the next several years. The interdisciplinary capabilities of our faculty and their interactions with the McDonnell Center also encourage on-going development of and application of new types of instruments for geoscientific research.