This award will provide one-half the funding required for the acquisition of an X-ray powder diffraction system to be installed and operated in the Department of Crop and Soil Environmental Sciences at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. The University is committed to providing the remaining funds needed. The modern X-ray diffraction system will be used by the PI, colleagues, and graduate students primarily in the quantitative analysis of clay and other very fine-grained mineral constituents of soils in research projects in environmental science and in pedology.
