This award provides one-half the funding for the acquisition of an automated electron probe microanalyzer to be installed and operated in the Materials Characterization Laboratory of the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences at the Pennsylvania State University. Penn State University is committed to providing the remaining half of the funding required. Major users of the microanalyzer will include staff and students of the departments of Geosiences, Metallurgy, Minerals Processing and Fuel Sciences. The need to accurately characterize chemical composition of both natural and synthetic solids with a spatial resolution of micrometers is a requirement that runs common to many of the sponsored research projects at the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences.
