This award will provide 73% of the cost of acquiring a noble gas mass spectrometer system to be installed and operated in the Department of Marine Chemistry and Geochemistry at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. The Institution is committed to providing the remaining funds necessary for the equipment acquisition and installation. The new mass spectrometer system will allow significant advances in the study of the geochemistry of noble gases in the Earth's mantle, and in the application of cosmic ray surface exposure dating in Quaternary geology. The mantle studies will focus on neon, argon, and xenon isotope studies and will allow characterization of mantle sources of ocean island and ocean ridge volcanism.
