Funding is provided to acquire a single-collector high-resolution double-focusing magnetic sector-field mass spectrometer for paleoclimate and biogeochemical research. The mass spectrometer will help enable high-precision measurement of elemental concentrations and isotope ratios in inorganic and organic solution matrices for a wide range of natural waters and geochemical applications. Such applications include high resolution paleoclimate records from speleothems, sulfur isotope variability in Antarctic and Greenland ice cores, and carbon cycling and biogeochemistry of vegetation and soils.
The broader impacts involve using the mass spectrometer to address fundamental research question in climate change and elemental cycling over various time scales as well as helping to further the career of a promising female scientist early in her career.