9315926 Hodges This award provides funding for one-half the cost of upgrade modifications to the noble gas mass spectrometry laboratory in the Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. MIT is committed to providing the remaining funds needed for the upgrade to the laboratory. The modifications include augmentation of automation to permit unattended laser mapping and pre-programmed incremental heating studies of samples, a new gas purification line for the laser sampling source, and improvements in data reduction and data archiving capabilities. The MIT noble gas mass spectrometer is used to obtain argon/argon dates of geological samples. ***
