This award provides one-half the funding for the acquisition of a thermal ionization source mass spectrometer that will be operated by the geoscience departments of the Research Triangle Universities (University of North Carolina, Duke University and North Carolina State University). The institutions have jointly committed the necessary remaining funds for this acquisition. The new instrument will be part of the analytical facilities of a Triangle Universities consortium for microanalysis, and will be used primarily for uranium-lead, rubidium-strontium and samarium-neodymium isotopic analyses leading to interpretations of oceanic sediments, marine carbonate stratigraphy, the modern terrestrial sedimentary environment, and the structure and evolution of the continental lithosphere.
