The University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) and the NSF will jointly fund renovation of the Mineral Separation Laboratory facilities for the program in Geosciences. The renovations are concurrent with the institution's transition from a predominantly undergraduate campus to a major urban research-oriented environment. Faculty utilizing the Mineral Separation Laboratory conduct nationally and internationally competitively funded research with collaborators at institutions that have facilities for state-of-the-art isotopic and geochemical analyses. Thus the ability to rapidly isolate individual mineral species from rocks is critical to ongoing investigations of petrology, diagenesis, and ultimately to tectonic and climatic processes. The current facilities at UNLV are plagued with sample contamination problems. Processing of rocks to isolate minerals involves numerous steps, and contamination of mineral separates may occur during each of the more than 6 individual steps. Even relatively low levels of contamination can preclude accurate age determinations. NSF support will enable replacement of fume hoods, the installation of additional laboratory benches and counters, renovation of windows, installation of a new HVAC system, replacement of windows, plumbing of water, vacuum and compressed air lines and installation of a dropped ceiling. Modifications to the electrical system will be included, as will enhancements to the walls and flooring. The renovation will increase mineral separation purity, laboratory safety and research efficiency within the Mineral Separation Laboratory. These are benefits that will directly impact 7 faculty, 14 graduate and 6 undergraduate students at UNLV, as well as two institutional partners in the Nevada Consortium for Geology, Geochemistry, and Geophysics. Finally, the completed renovation will form an important component of the implementation of the Ph.D. in Geoscience, as UNLV seeks to provide an increasingly research-oriented environment.
