My laboratories occupy 850 square feet in the North Mudd building of the Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences. The labs consist of two rooms, both newly renovated in 2003. The chemistry lab is equipped for routine organic chemistry, including three 8-foot fume hoods, a Mars Express microwave-assisted solvent extraction system, TurboVap LV, homemade N2 blowdown system for GC vials, Labconco dishwasher, IEC benchtop centrifuge, and large-volume muffle oven. The instrument lab houses several gas chromatography and mass spectrometry systems: two benchtop Thermo GC/MS systems for identifying and quantifying organic compounds; a TraceGC - Delta+XP isotope-ratio mass spectrometer for measuring 2H and 13C in individual organic compounds; a Delta-S isotope ratio mass spectrometer with Costech elemental analyzer for measuring 13C and 15N in bulk materials; a standalone Agilent 6890 GC/FID for sample quantitation and screening; a Los-Gatos DLT-100 Liquid Water Isotope Analyzer for measuring 18O and 2H in liquid water samples; and a Virtis freeze dryer for drying sample materials.
Numerous other facilities are available within the Geological & Planetary Sciences Division, including:
- Two state-of-the-art Ion Microprobe Instruments (Cameca NanoSIMS 50L and Cameca IMS 7f-Geo) housed in the Center for Microanalysis.
- Instrument fabrication and electronics shops, including CNC mills and lathes, surface grinding, and PC board fabrication.
- LEO 1550 VP Scanning Electron Microscope (Division facility)
- Jeol JXA-733 Electron Microprobe (Division facility)
- Thermo 253 and Delta+XL isotope-ratio mass spectrometers (Eiler lab)
- Element and Neptune ICP-MS instruments used for trace-element and isotopic abundance analysis of solutions (Adkins lab)
- Routine equipment for molecular biology (including Beckman ulta-centrifuge, Eppendorf PCR machine, power supplies and boxes for gel electrophoresis, tabletop centrifuges, analytical balances, etc.) is available in the Orphan lab.
