This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).
This Major Research Instrumentation Recovery and Reinvestment (MRI-R2) Program grant supports a thermal ionization mass spectrometer (TIMS) and a multi-collector, inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometer (MC-ICP-MS) equipped with a laser ablation (LA) microprobe system. The LA-MC-ICP-MS and TIMS instrumentation will support a wide array of research themes undertaken at SUNY-Stony Brook and adjacent academic institutions. Seven research groups are represented, spanning 15 scientist's research interests. Research fields include marine geochemistry, paleoceanography, environmental geochemistry, hydrogeochemistry, paleoclimatology, paleontology, toxicology, geochronology, and igneous petrology. The PIs wish to establish a research center which will support interdisciplinary research in the broad areas of geochemistry and geochronology. Active areas of PIs research and intended new research directions include: Thorium isotopic studies of aquatic particulates in order to elucidate particulate sinking fluxes which would utilize the requested MC-ICP-MS; age dating of detrital zircons and carbonates using U-Pb, U-series disequilibria and Re-Os dating techniques for geochronologic control in paleoclimate and paleontologic and paleoenvironmental investigations which would utilize both the TIMS and MC-ICP-MS; development of Strontium isotopic proxies of paleosalinity requiring thermal ionization mass spectroscopy; the use of Radium isotopic tracers of groundwater discharge into coastal waters; and the use of Boron/Calcium ratios and Boron isotopic proxies of paleo-pH in the ocean; and Nd/Sm dating and provenance studies of eolian marine sediments. The new instruments will support SUNY-SB researchers, post-docs and students as well as outside collaborators. Extant SUNY-SB REU programs are targeted for curriculum instrument integration, PIs plan outreach efforts to include interface with an extant Women in Science and Engineering (WISE) program and engagement of High school students through an existing fellowship program. The requested new instrumental capabilities will foster across campus and external collaborative research, much of which is focused on societally-relevant environmental and climate change issues.
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This project was funded by resources provided to the National Science Foundation (NSF) from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The NSF grant provided $1.2 million dollars to Stony Brook University (SBU) to acquire two new instruments called mass spectrometers. Mass spectrometers can make very precise measurements of the abundances of different masses of a chemical element (i.e. isotopes), the changes of which can be related to geological processes. Isotope geochemistry is a broad field that permits a better understanding of how physical, biological and chemical processes operate on Earth. In addition to the funds from NSF, SBU provided over $600,000 in matching costs. These were used in part to provide salary support to a postdoctoral researcher. SBU also provided resources to renovate laboratory space to house the mass spectrometers. The instruments were purchased from two companies, Nu Instruments and Isotopx, with offices in Newburyport and Mansfield, Massachusetts, respectively. The instruments are fully operational and are being used to train both undergraduates and graduate students. Indeed student training and research are priorities for the facility, which we are calling FIRST ("Facility for Isotope Research and Student Training"). A web link to the site describing the facility and providing information about the laboratory and current users can be found at: https://sites.google.com/a/stonybrook.edu/firststonybrook/home
