Under this project, a Huber powder goniostat and countertube attachment, and a Rigaku D/max IIIVB X-ray generator with vertical goniometer mount will be purchased. This instrumentation will serve the broad purpose of teaching geology, physics, and chemistry undergraduate students the fundamentals of photon counting and signal processing, interfacing of instruments to computers, and X-ray crystallographic techniques. It is our perception that undergraduate programs in geology, physics, and chemistry in general suffer from inadequacy in the teaching of instrument interfacing, computer simulation, and structure determination. All of these aspects of experimentation are important to the education of undergraduate geologists, physicists, and chemists so they can pursue graduate studies or obtain meaningful employment. The requested equipment will be used in mineralogy, petrology, soils, glacial geology, environmental geology, physical chemistry, chemical instrumentation laboratories and in selected independent studies and senior thesis research projects in geology, physics, and chemistry.
