This award provides funds for a major upgrade of a JEOL 6300 Scanning Electron Microscope that was donated to the Department of Earth Sciences at Syracuse University by Chevron-Texaco. The instrument is equipped with an energy-dispersive detector (EDS) and three wave-length dispersive detectors (WDS) containing a total of six crystals. The upgrade will include (1) complete modern automation of the WDS system and associated data reduction and analysis, which will make the instrument essentially an electron microprobe and allow us to do a wide range of in situ microbeam X-ray analysis; (2) a new Digital Imaging System that will include direct beam control for fast back-scattered electron (BSE) and secondary electron (SE) imaging at 400 x 400 resolution and allow X-ray dot mapping with up to 16 channels, allowing us to make detailed, high-resolution X-ray maps of the elemental compositions of metamorphic minerals, such as garnet, or element zoning as indicators of different age domains in minerals such as monazite; (3) a new EDS System for X-Ray spectral identification of the elemental compositions of minerals that are imaged; and (4) cathodoluminescence (CL) imaging, that has become virtually routine in modern U-Pb geochronology laboratories in showing the internal complexities of zircon, such as zoning, core-overgrowth relationships, resorption, and a variety of other internal features. The requested upgrade will provide the Department of Earth Sciences with a truly modern analytical facility which will be made available to our students, those of other departments on our campus, and those of smaller institutions in Central New York.
