This award provides funding over 12 months to acquire an X-ray core scanner. The institution will provide partial funding. The instrument will provide high-resolution, non-destructive elemental abundances in core and rock samples. The XRF core scanner will be added to the X-Ray Analytical Facility. Existing X-ray spectrometers and diffractometers will be used to calibrate and intercompare with the new instrument. The PI will have overall responsibility while a full-time University-funded technician will be responsible for day-to-day operations. A user fee based on core size will be used for cost recovery. The instrument will support the PIs' efforts to assess paleoenvironmental changes at scales ranging from sub-annual to millennial. Climate histories recorded in cores will allow the PIs to better understand environmental change. The electron microprobe/scanning electron microscope facility will be used to further study scanned cores allowing a more efficient and robust overall sample processing scheme. Ultimately, more reliable calibrations and quantitative procedures will be developed. The instrument will be incorporated into an existing regional facility which serves UMAss and other institutions (Amherst College, Hampshire College, Mount Holyoke College, and Smith College). The scanner will be available to student and faculty researchers. It will also be incorporated into courses in sedimentary geochemistry, sedimentology and X-ray analytical tecniques. The Svalbard REU project will immediately benefit with inherent societal climate change implications. STEM outreach will target teachers with environmental change assessment approaches which will benefit K-12 students.
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Sediments that form on the bottom of the oceans, or lakes, reflect the prevailing environmental conditions at the time of their formation. Geologists retrieve cores of these sediments and measure there properties, in an attempt to decipher past changing environmental conditions. One powerful approach is to use an X-Ray Fluorescent (XRF) core scanner to study these cores. We received funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF), together with matching funds from our Dean of the College of Natural Sciences and the Vice-Chancellor for Research and Development, to purchase an Itrax XRF core-scanner, manufactured in Sweden by Cox Analytical. This instrument has the capability of scanning a core at a resolution as fine as 0.1 mm, and integrating results from a digital optical image of the core, X-ray radiography, X-ray spectra that reflect changes in element abundances, and magnetic characteristics of the core. The instrument was delivered in October, 2011 and was operational by December 2011. It has already made a significant impact on the research and teaching within the Department of Geosciences, including undergraduate students taking part in the NSF funded Svalbard REU program taught by Prof. Brigham-Grette. Several graduate students have been trained to use the instrument and we are beginning to attract users from other institutions in New England. Projects undertaken to date include: 1. the impact of flooding on the Connecticut River from Hurricane Irene; 2. sediment and contaminant transport in off-river backwater coves and lakes; 3. occurrences of past hurricanes and tsunamis along the southern coast of Japan; 4. patterns of hurricane activity along the Florida panhandle over the past few thousand years; 5. study of the impact of the Little Ice Age on 16 - 17th century settlements in the Shetland Islands, United Kingdom. This work has supported two NSF-funded research projects, resulted in five presentations at national scientific meetings (four with students as lead authors) and four papers are in preparation. Additionally preliminary data obtained with the XRF core-scanner has been used to support a further NSF proposal that has been recommended for funding.
