This Division of Earth Sciences Instrumentation and Facilities Program award supports acquisition of an isotope ratio mass spectrometer (IRMS) system for climate, environmental, and biogeochemical research at Brown University. The new system will be a critical tool for ongoing and planned research projects of four principal investigators at Brown with demonstrated records of NSF funding, and an incoming new faculty member, as well as for educational and outreach activities. The instrument will be managed and maintained as part of Brown?s Organic Geochemistry Core Facility so that it can serve a large number of domestic and international students, visitors, and collaborators. Investigators and technicians have a successful record of operating and maintaining several mass spectrometer systems in the past 20 years.
The IRMS would be configured for continuous flow (CF) isotope ratio measurement of individual organic molecules that have been selected via gas chromatography prior to inlet to the IRMS. Compound-specific isotope analysis (CSIA) using CF-IRMS is central to deciphering archives of climate, environmental and ecosystem change, gaining new insights to biogeochemical cycles, and fostering inter-disciplinary collaborations. CSIA can be used to better infer paleoenvironmental conditions such as the dominant plant types extant in the past or the structure of food webs in natural ecosystems. Prior to the development and use of CSIA, bulk isotopic measurement of organic matter made up of a complicated mixture of molecules produced by different organisms confounded interpretation of targeted paleoenvironmental processes and conditions.
This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
