This award will provide one-half of the funds required to acquire an Inductively-Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometer system for installation and operation by the Scripps Analytical Facility at the University of California-San Diego. The University is committed to providing the other half of the funds required. The instrument will fill the need of the large research group at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography for a method to measure the abundances of trace elements in natural and synthetic samples with very high sensitivity. Applications span a range from the study of the chemistry of sediments and interstitial water, to natural nuclear reactions and their products, to the geochemistry of hydrothermal plumes in the ocean.
