This award will provide partial funding toward the acquisition of an inductively coupled plasma emission spectrometer (ICP) by Washington University in St. Louis. The new instrument is to be housed in the University's Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences and will be used to provide elemental analysis of rock and water samples needed in the course of the Department's research projects and teaching programs. Currently active research that will be making use of the instrument's capabilities include projects in low temperature experimental geochemistry, sedimentary petrology, ore genesis, and extraterrestrial geochemistry. The ICP unit will provide the capability to completely analyze the trace and major element composition of very small samples (less than 20 milligrams) of rocks, minerals and aqueous solutions. Such samples are now beyond the capability of the Department's current analytical systems.
