This award supports a full-time technician in the Wisconsin Secondary-Ion Mass-Spectrometer facility (WiscSIMS) to help maintain and run a new Cameca ims-1280 ion microprobe. WiscSIMS will be a multi-user center of excellence in stable isotope geochemistry. The proposal to purchase the ion microprobe included letters describing projects from 52 scientists; many in fields where the application of in situ stable isotope analysis is certain to yield exciting new results such as Petrology, Paleoclimatology, Mantle Geochemistry, and Meteoritics with others in areas where such analysis has not yet been fully exploited but holds great promise such as Sedimentology, Environmental Science, Nanotechnology, Biochemistry, and Medicine. Our facility will take advantage of new multicollector technology and other advances of the 1280 instrument to focus on the specialized needs of the stable isotope community: high precision, small sample size, and in situ analysis. The broader impacts of this proposal will include the training and instruction of undergraduate, graduate, and post-doctoral students. The unique new capabilities of this facility will facilitate fundamental research into a wide range of topics of societal concern, including climate change, environmental remediation and medicine.
