This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5). Granted funds will support acquisition of an electron backscattered diffraction (EBSD) camera and an energy dispersive spectrometer (EDS) for a recently acquired variable pressure field emission source scanning electron microscope (SEM) in the Earth Sciences Department at the University of Southern California. The EBSD camera will permit determination of the crystallographic preferred orientation patterns (CPOs) in mantle and crustal rocks that record lattice dislocations caused by physical conditions under which deformation occurred (e.g., flow stress, strain-rate, vorticity, and temperature). The EDS will permit simultaneous characterization of phase composition in the sample. PI and student research with a focus on the determination of the tectonic history of exhumed rocks will immediately benefit from the EBSD as will materials research on synthetically produced ultrafine grained nanostructured materials that have emerging commercial applications where extremely high strength materials are required.
