This two-year award provides support for US-France cooperative research aimed at developing new techniques for measuring isotopic abundance in geologic samples using the CAMECA ims 1270 ion microprobe, a new generation high sensitivity - high resolution secondary ion mass spectrometer (SIMS). The collaboration involves the research groups of Kevin McKeegan at the University of California, Los Angeles and Marc Chaussidon at the Center for Geochemical Research and Petrography in Nancy, France. The first ims 1270 is operating at UCLA as a National Science Foundation national facility. The US and French instruments are equipped with a unique multiple ion beam collector assembly. This multiple collector should allow improvements in precision and accuracy of isotopic analyses using SIMS. The US investigators bring to this collaboration expertise and experience in measuring oxygen and carbon isotopes with the new ims 1270. This is complemented by French experience with the multicollector SIMS. The groups will collaborate by cross- calibrating samples in each laboratory and sharing analytical techniques, software developments, and hardware improvements. The project will advance the use of isotope measurements of terrestrial and extraterrestrial samples and open new research areas in isotope geochemistry.
