This award provides one-half the funds required for a noble gas mass spectrometer system to be installed and operated in the College of Oceanography at the Oregon State University. The institution is committed to providing the remaining half. The new instrument is to be used for radiometric age determinations by the potassium-argon and argon 40/39 methods and for the study of noble gas in volcanic rocks and minerals. Specific goals of the research applications include, (1) quantitative timescales for continental and oceanic volcanic systems in the 10,000 to million year range, (2) calibration of paleoclimate periodicities using ash layers in marine cores and ice cores, (3) timing of geomagnetic field variations (intensity and direction) for Brunhes-age volcanic rocks, and (4) the intercalibration of the argon chronology with other radiometric methods such as carbon-14, uranium decay series and thermoluminescence dating.
