9406305 Hodges This award provides partial funding for the support of a technician assigned to the solid-source and gas-source mass spectrometry laboratories in the Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The laboratories are engaged in ongoing programs of research and graduate education that require full-time technical assistance. Current basic research projects focus on the use of radiometric dating techniques to interpret large-scale tectonic processes and Earth history. *** 9405805 Craig This award provides 75% of the funds required for the acquisition of a microscope system for use with transmitted and reflected light to be used in the rare gas isotope laboratory, Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego. The University is committed to providing the remaining funds necessary for the acquisition. The microscope system is mainly to be used by researchers working with fluid, glass, and crystalline inclusions trapped in samples of basaltic rocks that have been extruded from the Earth's mantle. The microscope is needed for the location and identification of these small inclusions prior to extraction of the rare gases (argon, helium, and neodymium) for isotopic analysis. The researchers at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography are using the isotopic content of the rare gases brought up from the mantle to understand the geochemical evolution of the mantle. ***
